


Adrift

by xxSparksxx



Category: Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Dementia, F/M, Gen, NO DEATH, Past Character Death, So much angst, main character with dementia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 21:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13983339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxSparksxx/pseuds/xxSparksxx
Summary: Adrift:1) floating without control; drifting; not anchored or moored:2) lacking aim, direction, or stability.In their twilight years together, Demelza’s mind becomes adrift, and Ross must try to be her anchor.





	Adrift

**Author's Note:**

> This idea hooked me and wouldn't let me go. I apologise in advance. Thanks to mmmuses for her excellent beta-reading skills, as ever.
> 
> This is a **book-verse** story set after the novels. In other words, it has references to all of the later books, including many events that are considered major spoilers for those books.
> 
>  
> 
> **Do not read this if you are worried about future book spoilers. Seriously.**  
> 

* * *

 

Ross would always say, afterwards, that it began one cold night in late January. That was the start of it, he would tell anyone who asked, in later days. It had not crept upon them, like a slow tide; it was sudden, a wave crashing over their heads before anybody knew there was any danger.

It began on that one particular night when he woke in the dark, thirsty, and found himself alone in bed.

It was unusual for anything to disturb Demelza’s sleep, these days. The nights of crying infants were long behind them, and her migraines, that had sometimes woken her with pain, had ceased entirely with the ending of her monthly courses. These days she rarely rose for anything in the night, so Ross was disconcerted, now, by the emptiness where Demelza should have been, and by the coldness of the sheets that told of how long she had been gone.

He sat up and groped on the bedside table for a candle and flint. Then, with the candle lit, he reached for his cane. He only grudgingly used it around the house, but the winter cold bit into the old wound in his foot, making him unsteady, and Demelza had made him promise to use the thing when his foot was bad. She had promised, in turn, to believe him when he said he could manage without. It was cold tonight, and dark, and though Ross knew every inch of Nampara by heart – could navigate it blindfold – he had promised, and so reluctantly he used the cane.

She was not in Jeremy’s bedroom, where she still sometimes went when the sadness rose up and overwhelmed her. It was years since his death, but still the grief hit them both at unexpected moments. The bedroom had been used by other people since Jeremy had last occupied it, but both Ross and Demelza still thought of it as Jeremy’s room, and Demelza’s rare night-time awakenings usually drew her here. But tonight the room was undisturbed.

Henry was asleep in his bedroom. Ross paused at the door and listened, through the wood, to the faint sounds of his youngest son’s breathing. Henry was nearly a man grown now, no longer the imperious, impetuous child he had been when his elder brother had died. Ross felt old to think of it. He _was_ old. Three grandchildren already, another on the way. Too old to be fumbling about in the dark because Demelza fancied a night-time wander.

He went downstairs, careful on the stairs, and checked each room in turn. The old parlour was empty and dark, and so too the library. He thought the kitchen was likewise, but as he lifted his candle higher to send light flickering across the dark room, a movement caught his eye. There she was, his errant wife, crouched at the hearth, hair loose across her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing a robe or slippers; her feet were bare on the cold floor. In her white nightgown, she looked like a ghost, a spectre haunting the dark kitchen.

“Demelza,” he said, voice a little hoarse from sleep. “What in God’s name are you doing?”

She startled and overbalanced, coming down onto her rear, and she looked up at him with eyes that seemed impossibly wide.

“Ross,” she said. She sounded strange. She sounded as if she was not quite sure of him. Ross frowned and went further into the kitchen. He set the candle on the table and reached out a hand for her. But Demelza shook her head, and rose without his help. She was cold, he saw, shivering with it. Her face was pale in the candlelight.

“Where’s your robe?” he asked her, and Demelza shrugged a thin shoulder. She had grown thinner, these last few years – not that she’d ever had any weight to lose. It was perhaps a sign that she was growing older, though one could hardly tell her age by her general demeanour. She was still as energetic as ever, still deeply involved in all the doings of the house and the farm. She doted on her grandchildren, giving them all the love and affection that she had always given her own children. And she looked after Ross, as she had been doing for the better part of fifty years.

“I came down to find Garrick,” she said. She still sounded odd, as if her mind was somewhere far away – as perhaps it was, for Garrick had died many years before. Decades ago, now. Ross reached for her again, and this time she came to him. He set aside his cane and wrapped his arms around her. Demelza rested her head against his shoulder. “I forgot he was dead,” she said plaintively. “I came down and he wasn’t here, and I couldn’t think where he was.”

“You must have dreamed of him,” Ross soothed, though he didn’t quite believe it himself. A sharp pang of fear had struck him. She seemed so very fragile suddenly, here in the dark. So unlike her usual self. “Then you woke up and were confused,” he added. “That’s all.”

Demelza did not argue with him, and Ross did not try to convince her further. They went back upstairs, Ross leaning on Demelza’s arm rather than his cane, and when they got into bed, he drew her close to him. She fell asleep quickly, but Ross lay awake for some time, staring up into the darkness and wondering.

It didn’t happen again. Ross worried for a while, and slept restlessly for some time because he kept waking to make sure she was still beside him, but Demelza was always peacefully asleep, and she seemed her normal self during the day. So Ross relaxed, and began to forget about the incident. After all, he told himself, dreams could sometimes feel almost real enough to be true. She had dreamed of her old dog, and so had looked for him. Nothing more.

Then one day, when winter was nearly over and spring just beginning to make itself known, Demelza put sugar in his tea. She realised it at once, and laughed about it. Ross laughed too, and teased that she wanted him to become sweeter in his old age. Demelza made a tart comment about his temperament, and poured him a fresh cup of tea. It was a small thing. A small forgetfulness that could happen to anybody, though they had lived together for most of Demelza’s life, and she knew full well that he never took sugar in his tea.

“I’m scatterbrained at the moment,” she said, smiling at him. “Cuby arrives tomorrow with the children, you know, and with Betsy Maria ill, I’ve so much to do.”

“Cuby won’t mind if the curtains aren’t freshly washed,” Ross said, with a roll of his eyes. But he knew Demelza, and he knew that nothing he could say would keep her from her preparations. He accepted his new cup of tea and thought no more about it.

Cuby came less often than she had in earlier years, married again now and with two more children besides Noelle. She had not been in nearly a year, in fact, though little Noelle had come by herself once or twice. Noelle, their first grandchild, was a delightful girl, and her visits to Nampara were a balm on an old wound, particularly for Demelza. Time had soothed the sharpest pain of Jeremy’s death, but Ross had long since come to terms with the fact that, for Demelza, it was a wound that would never fully heal. As for Cuby, she was still part of their family, and always welcome for her own sake, as well as for Jeremy’s. She came now to stay for two weeks, with Noelle and her two younger children, for whom Ross and Demelza held a genuine affection. They were agreeable children, well-mannered and cheerful, and fond of their step-sister’s grandparents. Demelza was always delighted to have young children about the house again, and Ross, always pleased to see her happy, never complained about the disruption they caused.

Cuby had been at Nampara for three days when she came to Ross alone, in the library after dinner when Demelza was busy in the kitchen.

“Please excuse me for asking, Sir Ross,” she said, “but is Demelza quite well?”

Ross took off his reading glasses and frowned as the words of the letter in front of him blurred accordingly. “A little tired, perhaps,” he said. “She does too much. Neither of us have the energy we used to, though she won’t admit it.” Cuby smiled at that, and Ross leaned back in his chair and looked closely at her. “Have you some reason for asking?” he questioned.

“No,” said Cuby, drawing the word out, hesitant and slow. “No, not…precisely. That is, she _does_ seem tired, it’s true, but it’s more that she seems somewhat…forgetful. She asked me three times about our plans for Noelle’s schooling, and she didn’t seem to realise it.”

“She does too much, as I say,” Ross said again. “I’ve told her before to hire another maid to help in the house. And perhaps I’ll manage to take her away this summer, for a rest.”

Cuby seemed appeased and went away, but Ross set his letter aside and brooded on the matter. Had Demelza been more forgetful of late? Perhaps a little, but in such minor ways that it hardly seemed worth worrying about. Except, of course, for that night in January, when she had forgotten that Garrick was long since dead. At the time he had convinced himself that she’d merely had a vivid dream, but now he wondered. Now he combed his memory for other incidents and began to feel a worm of discomfort moving within his breast.

A week later he found her putting a second pair of stockings over her first, and when he pointed this out to her, she seemed surprised.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, Ross, I don’t know if I’m coming or going, I really don’t. I was thinking about Bella’s last letter. I must have just kept on getting dressed without thinking about it.” She smiled up at him, her familiar face full of merriment. Ross smiled back at her but felt distracted. He watched as she took off the second pair of stockings and smoothed out the first, and he wondered, and he worried.

“We’re all getting older, Ross,” Dwight pointed out to him, when Ross raised the concern with him at the next available opportunity. “Demelza is how old, sixty-three?”

“Sixty-three next month.”

“Well, it’s not so surprising,” Dwight shrugged. “As we age, our minds often slow down. Caroline tells me that if I forget where my glasses are one more time, she’ll snap them.” Ross smiled, but faintly. Caroline was like Demelza, not letting her age slow her down more than a little. The four of them were in remarkably good health, all told, for a quartet of people in their middle sixties or early seventies. Ross was the oldest, and age told on him most. He was aware of a physical slowness that would have irked him twenty years before, an aching in his muscles and joints after exertions that would once have been considered minor. And of course his old foot injury made itself known more frequently. Still, he had enough sense to be grateful that he was only a little slower, and in a little more pain. Many people of his age were in far worse shape – those that were not already dead.

And Demelza…well, perhaps Dwight was right, perhaps it was merely that she was growing older and growing slower. None of her memory lapses were of any great significance, after all. Sugar in his tea, two pairs of stockings…none of it was important. Silly mistakes that they could laugh about.

Spring turned into summer, and Demelza’s forgetfulness grew a little more frequent, until it became almost a normal part of their lives. Ross began to be unsurprised by the way she sometimes had to pause before summoning a name from her mind, or the way she occasionally seemed to lose track of passing time. They laughed about it together still, though sometimes Ross felt a pang of worry when she hesitated too long over the name of somebody that she knew quite well, and sometimes Demelza looked a little afraid when she realised that whole hours had passed while she had done nothing more than sit in her rocking chair staring out of the window.

One afternoon in August they were together in the garden, Ross sitting watching as Demelza pottered around with her plants. It was a warm day, and for once neither of them were needed anywhere else in the house or farm. Demelza looked dainty in a white muslin frock, a large straw hat protecting her face from the sun, and Ross was taking great pleasure in watching her and conversing idly while the sunshine sank into his bad foot and eased the ache there. It was pleasant and peaceful and, unusually, he was enjoying the idleness of it all.

Then she said something that shattered the peace of the afternoon.  

“I do wish Jeremy would visit soon,” she said. “I miss him something terrible. Of course they must grow up, but it do sometimes feel like he’s forgot us.”

Ross’s mouth went dry. The nagging fear that had grown in him over the past months became, suddenly, a terror. It gripped him firmly, a cold hand closing around his throat and squeezing tight, robbing him of thought for endless moments. His heart pounded in his chest, and a chill seemed to settle across his whole body. But Demelza seemed utterly unaware of what she had said, of how _wrong_ it was. She went on pruning roses as if she had not just spoken of their dead son as if he had simply moved to another part of the county.

“Demelza,” he managed at last. “Demelza…my love, Jeremy is dead.”

Demelza turned to him, eyebrows drawn together in a fierce frown, lips parting as if to issue a retort. But then the frown faded, and she stared at him. Ross stared back, too shocked to say anything more as he watched the knowledge of her son’s death sink into her all over again. He saw it as it must have happened back then, when she’d received his letter. Her eyes filling with tears, her lips parted soundlessly. Then she dropped her scissors and covered her mouth with both hands. Blood drained from her face, making her seem as white as the dress she wore, and she swayed, as if buffeted by a fierce wind. Ross, fearing she would faint, sprang up to assist her. But he moved his foot wrong and pain flared up, white-hot, in his ankle. He bit back a curse and grasped hold of his chair to steady himself and keep from falling. In a moment Demelza was beside him, helping him back down into the chair. There was colour in her cheeks now, a flush that did not seem normal. Her eyes were bright, unshed tears sparkling in the sunlight.

“Careful,” she remonstrated him. “You’ll do yourself a harm, leaping about like that.”

“Demelza –,”

“I know,” she said. She crumpled then, like a doll whose strings had been cut. She knelt on the grass beside him, put her head on his knee, and sobbed. Ross knocked aside her hat and stroked her hair. Her tears quickly soaked his trousers, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t remember feeling so afraid. He had not been so afraid for her in many years. Henry’s birth, of course – the births of all their children – and for a time in France, when they’d been separated. But since then…since then he’d only been so afraid for her once, when she had been attacked by Paul Kellow.

“How could I forget that?” Demelza wept. “How could I forget?”

Ross had no answer for her. He let the storm of tears wear her out, and then he took her inside and called for Betsy Maria to help her mistress to bed. He sent a message to Killewarren, to Dwight, watching as the young messenger went racing down the lane, and then he paced the library, heedless of the pain in his bad foot.

Dwight came quickly, and listened to Ross’s half-garbled explanation before going upstairs to see Demelza. Ross collapsed into a chair and waited, half-sick with anxiety. He heard Betsy Maria speaking to Henry, somewhere nearby, and then his son appeared in the library, full of questions and concern. Ross sent him away, too agitated to bear company. Henry went, without protest and without visible sense of insult. Ross waited. Time seemed to slow. The tick of the clock on the mantelpiece sounded sluggish. Ten minutes, half an hour, an hour passed. Still Ross waited, desperate for Dwight to come downstairs again and yet dreading it too.

At last he heard Dwight’s tread on the stairs. Dwight came into the library slowly, as if he carried a weight that made each step hard to take. He looked as though he was trying to be detached and professional, but Ross knew him too well. They had been friends for too long. He could see the way Dwight’s jaw was tensed, how his fingers curled and uncurled restlessly at his sides. There was bad news coming, and Dwight hesitated to deliver it. He was here as a doctor, but the doctor could not be divorced from the friend.

“Tell me the worst,” Ross demanded. So Dwight told him.

It seemed most likely a kind of senility, he said, from the symptoms Demelza described to him. A dementia. No other causes presented themselves as probable. It was certainly not a stroke. The progress of it might be slow or rapid, and it would likely affect certain areas more swiftly – names, Ross heard himself say, and Dwight nodded, as if that was what he had expected.

“Her speech will probably deteriorate further. Perhaps her physical functioning, too. Eventually…” His voice caught in his throat, and he coughed to clear it. “Eventually, it’s likely she won’t recognise much.” Dwight’s professionalism was entirely gone now. “Perhaps not even her closest family.”

“She might not recognise me,” Ross said. It was as if somebody else had spoken. He could not believe the words had come from his own mouth. The idea that Demelza might not recognise him, that he would lose her this way, was so utterly repugnant. He had never even contemplated such an idea. Always, always in his mind there had been the sure notion that he would go first, that he would not have to bear living without her. He was ten years older than she. Seventy-three, and growing less mobile every year. He was old. She was so much younger, she was so full of life, so vibrant, and he had never been able to stomach the idea of living on without her. Better for him to die first. She would be able to cope without him; he would not be able to continue without her.

But this…this was a fate he could never have imagined. If she was ill with some incurable disease, that would be one thing. Hard to face, impossible to bear, but common enough, a hazard of life that they all faced. But this – what Dwight was describing – this would be a living death. To still have her, and yet for her not to be his Demelza…it was beyond repugnance. Beyond fear. Ross felt sick at the very notion.

“It will be some time yet,” Dwight offered, as if that was any comfort. “It could even be years, perhaps, before it gets to that stage. And of course, my diagnosis may not be accurate.  We must watch her carefully for a period of months, I think, and then…”

“But if you’re right, then she will eventually think me a stranger.”

“…Yes. Yes, I think it likely.” Dwight cleared his throat again. Ross turned away from him, fighting against despair. “There is very little I can do,” Dwight said after a few moments. “If…if she becomes distressed, there are things I can prescribe. Not yet, of course. She’s a long way from that. I’ll mix up a draught that she can take to help her sleep. She must be careful not to tire herself. You must try to keep her busy, engaged with the household, but…but she must be careful not to get overtired.”

Ross stared around the room and saw a trace of Demelza in everything around him. The curtains she had made, the cushion she had trimmed. The mending basket beside her chair, a pair of slippers tucked beneath a table. She would not recognise him, Dwight said. She would not recognise him. Not yet, but eventually. Eventually she would look at him and not know him as her husband.

“I am so sorry, Ross,” murmured Dwight at last. Ross nodded, but said nothing. He could say nothing, for there was something in his throat choking him, cutting off any words that he might have tried to summon. At least Dwight knew him well enough to know not to push him. He patted Ross’s shoulder and sent him up to Demelza.

She was lying in the bed, the bed they had shared for some forty-six years of married life. Her eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, her cheeks pale. Her hands were restless, fingers twining together above the blankets. She said nothing when he came in. Ross took off his boots and stretched out on top of the blankets. They lay facing each other, silent and grief-stricken.

At length she spoke. His brave, strong Demelza broke the silence first.

“Well, Ross,” she said.

“Well, my love.”

“I won’t just let it happen,” she told him, her resolve clear though her voice was unsteady. She looked afraid, as afraid as Ross felt, but she had mastered many fears before, and Ross had little doubt that she would try to master this one, too. Perhaps she would not succeed, but she would try. For himself, he didn’t think he could even begin to comprehend the depths of his fear, let alone begin to conquer it. “I won’t just wake up one morning and not be me any longer,” she added.

“What did Dwight tell you?” Ross managed to ask.

“No less than he told you, I hope,” said Demelza, with a little forced laugh. Ross flinched. Then he reached out to put his arm around her waist. “More than I wanted to hear,” she admitted. She lifted a hand and traced a path down his face, along the line of his jaw, and then put two fingers at his lips. Ross kissed her fingertips. Demelza smiled, but it was a sad smile, and her eyes were brimming with tears once more. “I knew I was getting forgetful,” she murmured. Her voice was small and fearful. Ross hated hearing her so afraid. “I thought I was just more tired, that’s all. Just…just growing old bones.”

Ross pulled her close to him and held her. Demelza rested her head on his shoulder and wept until it seemed there could be no more tears in her.

She stayed in bed for the rest of the day, and Ross told Henry that she had a bad headache and must not be disturbed. They would tell Henry the truth, of course. They had never been in the habit of concealing anything from their children, once they were old enough to understand, and both Ross and Demelza knew that it would likely become obvious, soon enough, that something was wrong. But the telling of it could be left for another day, after they had seen Dwight again. After the reality of it had sunk in, for Ross felt for now that it was all some terrible nightmare, and that surely he would wake tomorrow and discover it all to be a cruel trick of his mind.

Dwight returned the next day and examined Demelza again. Ross was present this time, and some of Dwight’s questions were put to him – questions about Demelza’s memory lapses, about things he had observed. Demelza clutched Ross’s hand throughout, and though she did not hesitate to answer Dwight’s questions, she kept her head turned away from them, choosing instead to look out of the window towards her garden even when she spoke.

“Will you tell Caroline for me, please,” she requested, when Dwight’s questioning came to an end and he and Ross had both fallen silent. She looked at Dwight for the first time then, her face unusually grave. She was pale still today, dark smudges beneath her eyes betraying that she had scarcely slept. “But don’t let her come over just yet. I feel as though I want to be…quite alone with Ross, for a while.”

Ross squeezed her hand tightly, but she did not complain. Dwight promised to keep Caroline from visiting until Demelza sent word that she wanted company. He had brought a powder for Demelza to take when she could not sleep, but Ross took charge of it, for he knew full well that she would scorn it unless he insisted. He saw Dwight to the door, then went back to Demelza. She had risen and stood at the parlour window, her hands clasped tightly together. Her hands were as thin as the rest of her, her knuckles visibly bony, the skin wrinkled. Ross had never really thought of her as old before now. Certainly he had never thought of her as frail.

He went and stood beside her. She reached out a hand, and he took hold of it. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing that could be said.

For a while life continued on without marked change. They told Henry that Demelza was ill, and that she would not get better, and then sent him to Dwight to learn more. He came back from Killewarren looking stunned and saying very little, but he kissed Demelza’s cheek with special warmth, and later Ross caught him shedding tears in the privacy of his own bedroom. A day or two later, Ross wrote to Clowance and to Isabella-Rose to give them the news. It was easier to write than speak, but barely so. He told them both not to visit in a hurry. There was plenty of time, he wrote to them, and Demelza wanted peace for now.

“Bella is so near her time, you know,” Demelza said, when Ross had posted the letters. “And Clowance has the twins. There’s no need for either of them to abandon their lives and rush home.”

“I think they will want to see you,” Ross observed. Perhaps she was right; perhaps there was time. But Clowance and Bella would want to come before it was too late. Before Demelza grew so ill that she did not recognise her own daughters.

Demelza guessed at his thoughts, and pursed her lips. “Don’t borrow trouble, Ross,” she told him. “What will come, will come.”

It was not a philosophy that Ross could ascribe to – at least not in this. Certainly the idea that there was nothing he could do sat ill with him, and several times that autumn he grew bitterly angry at his own helplessness. What he could do, he did. He insisted on hiring another maid, to ease Demelza’s work. He withdrew from his own engagements, such as they still were. He had not been physically active with the mine for some time, his bad foot preventing him from climbing down the shafts, but now his visits to Wheal Leisure ceased entirely, and he relied upon Ben Carter for reports and news. His other business affairs had largely been conducted by letter for years, so little change was needed there. The farmhands were all good workers, and Henry was old enough, and willing enough, to take charge of the farm. So Ross at last eased back from an active, busy life, a thing that he had always refused to do for his own sake, but now gladly did for Demelza.

Demelza seemed pleased that he was more at his leisure than he had ever been, though that didn’t stop her from making an occasional teasing complaint that he was always under her feet now. It was true, he clearly _was_ in her way at times, as she went about her daily work and routines. But Ross didn’t want to be otherwise; he didn’t want to be apart from her. He was gripped with a new awareness of how little time might be left to them, and he wanted to savour as much of it as possible, and to be with his wife as much as he could. He wanted to spend these long leisure hours with the wife who he so dearly cherished, before…

Not that the illness seemed to progress very much. Autumn crept on, wet and windy, and Demelza was still forgetful, but did not seem more so than before. Once or twice Ross caught her looking puzzled at one of the servants, as if she had forgotten who they were. Sometimes he thought she forgot other things, for there was sometimes a blankness in her eyes when she read a letter from Clowance or a note from a tradesman, but if she did forget something, she remembered again before she said anything to reveal her slip. Only occasionally did she say something to remind them both, jarringly, that her memory was beginning to decay. She did not forget Jeremy’s death again, did not ask for him as if his absence was temporary. Ross clasped with both hands the hope this seemed to represent, though Dwight cautioned him against false expectations.

Most of the extended family came to visit for Christmas. Clowance and Edward came, with their twins. Isabella-Rose and Christopher, with their newborn daughter. Drake and Morwenna came from Looe, though they stayed with Geoffrey Charles at Trenwith. Cuby and Noelle were spending the holiday with other relatives, but the house was full without them. On Christmas Day the Trenwith Poldarks came, and the Enyses from Killewarren, and Sam with Rosina and their children. Even Ben Carter and Esther came for Christmas dinner, with their brood of youngsters, Demelza’s great-nieces and nephews. The house was fairly bursting with them, Poldarks and Carnes and Enyses and children underfoot wherever Ross turned. Only Verity was not there, an absence that they all rued but all understood. She was no longer able to travel at all, confined mostly to her bed, and of course her son was with her for Christmas. But despite their absence, it was a happy occasion. The house was full of laughter and young voices, and Demelza was at the heart of it all, laughing with the adults and playing with the children, who told her all their secrets and demanded stories in return.

Clowance had cornered Ross on Christmas Eve and demanded to hear how her mother was, truthfully, and Ross had been able to give her a somewhat favourable report.

“Dwight is pleased it’s not progressed further,” he had told her. “Though you know it…it _will_ get worse. He’s certain of that.” That it had not yet done so was a blessing, but Dwight was confident. It _would_ get worse. Ross couldn’t count on Demelza remaining as she was; sooner or later, her mind would falter a little more. There were some signs, some small incidents that taken individually might mean nothing, but collectively would build into a pattern, in time.

Sometimes the incidents were not so small. Earlier in the month he had woken in the night and found Demelza trying to dress, convinced she must go out. She had tried to explain it to him, such an incoherent muddle of past and present that Ross’s heart had ached to hear it. She must go down to the cove, she had said, because the customs men would be waiting, and Henry must be warned. But as far as Ross knew, Henry had never taken any part in the trade, and it was many years since anybody had tried to run boats into Nampara Cove. He had coaxed Demelza back into bed by promising that the smugglers had plenty of look-outs, and they would know not to land in the cove if there was any sign of the customs men. It had taken a good ten minutes to persuade her that all was well.

“And you, Papa?” Clowance had pressed him. “How are you?” Ross had shrugged, and listened to the sound of Demelza laughing in the next room. He’d wondered how many more times he would hear Demelza laugh. Then Bella had begun to play the piano, and the children began to sing a carol, and Demelza’s laughter was drowned out. “Papa,” Clowance had said, looking determined, “Edward and I have discussed it, and when it becomes…when it becomes difficult, we think that I should come back here to live. To help you and Mama.”

“There’s no question of that,” Ross had said at once. Clowance had her own life, a happy marriage, and young children to care for – she had her twin sons, not even three years old yet. It was a kind, generous offer, but not one that Ross would allow her to entertain. “I’ve talked with Dwight,” he admitted to her, “and if it becomes necessary, I shall engage somebody to…to help.” To watch Demelza. To keep her safe. Dwight had said it would almost certainly be needed, eventually. Someone to be with her throughout the day, to make sure she ate and drank, to tend to her needs and to prevent her from coming to harm. Ross wanted to do it all himself, but had had to admit Dwight was right when he said there were too many obstacles to that. His bad ankle, his own increasing age and weariness…no, assistance would be needed, but he would not have Clowance give up her life, perhaps for some years, to look after Demelza when the worst came.

Christmas Day passed with great merriment. Demelza misnamed the children, but there were so many of them that Ross was hardly surprised. She talked easily with Caroline, and with Bella and Clowance and her brothers, and she even let the servants do almost all of the work of the day, though she kept a close eye on the kitchen preparations and more than once Ross caught her looking as though she would like to leap up and take a more active part. But it was a good day, full of love and laughter, and hardly marred by her illness. That night, when Ross was in bed already and Demelza at her dressing table, she looked at him and smiled a warm, pleased smile.

“It’s been a wonderful day, Ross,” she said. “As near perfect as I could want.” She was brushing her hair, still long and thick, though it was all white now. She had stopped using her dye once Ross’s own hair had become entirely grey. A matched set, she’d said. Often enough she was mistaken for his second wife, she had told him, and it had been nice for a while, but she wearied of it. Ross had always liked the compliment, but he hadn’t cared to fight her on the subject, and the whiteness of her hair was striking in its own way.

“Very nice,” he agreed. “Edward was trying to convince me that we should visit them next Christmas, but I like our Christmases here at Nampara.”

“I’ll treasure the memory of it,” she murmured. Ross watched her, alert suddenly, aware that she had more to say. Demelza put down her brush, blew out her candle, and then came to the bed and got in beside him. They lay on their sides, facing each other, hands clasped in the space between them. Demelza looked weary, Ross thought. There were dark smudges beneath her eyes. He must be more careful to see that she did not overdo things. This had been too much for her, this full house, however much she had enjoyed it. He had only allowed it because he had been so afraid that this might be the last such Christmas. He’d forgotten that fear today, but now it came back, worse than ever. Demelza looked so very weary.

“I’m forgetting more things, Ross,” she said at last. Her voice was small and frightened. Ross tightened his grasp of her hands, as if he could keep her tethered to him by simple physical contact. “Often times I can feel there’s a hole in my mind where a word should be. Or a name. More and more it’s happening. I look at the children – our _grandchildren_ , Ross – and I can’t remember their names, or who belongs to who.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he told her. There was a lump in his throat, and he felt so many different things that he could not begin to distinguish them. “It doesn’t matter, my love. I’ll remind you. As often as necessary.”

She was crying now, silent tears that dropped down her nose and cheeks and onto the pillow. “I’m scared,” she said. “Ross, I’m so scared.” He released her hands and pulled her close against him, chest to chest, legs tangled together, her breath hot against his face. “What if I forget you, too?” she asked him. It was not something she had spoken of before, though it was a fear that had been constantly in Ross’s thoughts since Dwight had given the terrible diagnosis. “I couldn’t bear it, Ross. I couldn’t bear it if I was to forget you,” she wept.

“Hush, my darling,” Ross murmured, trying to soothe her but feeling as though he could cry himself. But he must not give in to tears. Demelza needed him to be strong. “Hush now. It may never happen, my love.” He could not think of it. He would not. There was enough to deal with in the present without trying to foresee the future. The idea that she might look at him and not know him…he could not think of it now. Always it hovered in the back of his mind, a dreadful and inescapable fate, but he could not allow it to consume his thoughts. Not now, not when she needed him to be strong.

January set in with howling gales, and a few weeks after Christmas, Ross came in from the farm to find Demelza rummaging through the house as if she was a wind herself, causing havoc and disarray as she went from room to room, frantically searching for something. Cupboard doors hung open, drawers had been pulled out and the contents scattered, a newspaper was strewn on the floor perilously close to the parlour fire. Betsy Maria had been following Demelza, trying to help, but she looked relieved when Ross appeared.

“She won’ say what she’s lookin’ for, sir,” she told him. “I asked if I could help, but she don’t hardly seem t’know I’m here.”

“Alright, Betsy, thank you,” said Ross. Betsy Maria left, and Ross carefully approached Demelza. Things were strewn across the floor – papers, clothes, cushions. The chaos made it hard for him to walk across the room, for he grew less mobile with each winter and his cane had become irritatingly necessary for even short distances. But he reached her side without incident, and only then did she seem to notice him, looking up from rummaging in another drawer with a surprised expression.

“Oh, Ross,” she greeted him. “I didn’t see you come in. Help me? I can’t find it anywhere. Help me look?”

“What are we looking for?” Ross asked gently. Demelza gave him an exasperated look, as if he should already know what she wanted without her needing to say it.

“The – the thing,” she said, making a gesture. “It’s – you know, the – the thing you use for drinking.” Her exasperation turned into frustration, her brows drawn together and her hands clenched into fists. She had lost a word, and she knew it. It was painful to see how she groped and struggled for whatever word she wanted. It made Ross’s heart ache.

“A cup?” he suggested.

“Yes!” Demelza exclaimed. “Jeremy’s loving cup. I’m looking for it – I must get rid of it, Ross, will you help me?” She turned away from him and resumed rummaging in the drawer, heedless of the mess she was making. Now that she was looking away from him, Ross allowed himself a moment to close his eyes and take a breath. Then he opened his eyes again and reached out to take hold of her hands, clasping them firmly in his to keep her still.

“You already did, Demelza,” he said, as patiently as he could. “You threw it into the sea, do you remember? Years ago.”

Demelza stared at him. She looked quite unlike herself, wilder and unnatural in some indescribable way. He was suddenly reminded of the way he had first seen her, dressed in her brother’s clothes, covered in dirt and blood, cursing and fighting for her dog. He had not thought of it in years, but looking at her now, there was a similar wildness to her. His wife had vanished, drawn back – if only for a moment – into the instincts of a feral child. It was as if he had already lost her, and it _terrified_ him to realise that this was all that lay in their future. Her mind faltering and fumbling until perhaps, at last, all their shared life together became meaningless to her.

Then that strange, feral look disappeared, and she became his wife again. Full of fear, her eyes wide and her lower lip trembling a little, but recognisable as herself.

“Do you remember, my love?” he asked again, gently, refusing to show his terror.

“No,” she denied. “No, I don’t. Are you sure, Ross?”

“I saw you do it myself.”

Demelza looked down at their clasped hands and shook her head. “I don’t remember,” she said desolately. “I don’t remember doing that.” Ross tugged her close and wrapped his arms around her. She did not cry, but she was shaking, a fine trembling throughout her body. Ross dried his eyes on her hair and wished for some way to help her. But there was nothing he could do. There was no help that anyone could offer. All Ross could do was hold her, and try to be a source of strength for her, as she had been for him for so many years.

“I can’t let him down,” Demelza murmured. “I have to keep him safe, Ross.” He didn’t understand what she meant, but she said nothing more to explain herself. There had always been something strange about the loving cup, he remembered. Something mixed up with Jeremy, and perhaps with that one night when he’d come home and found Demelza drunk. But if there was some secret she was keeping from him, it was not one that she seemed willing to share now – if she even remembered it clearly herself, which seemed unlikely.

Many of Demelza’s worst forgetful spells, her worst lapses in memory, seemed to be focused around Jeremy. When Ross allowed himself to think about it, he supposed it made sense. Demelza had suffered wounds enough in her life, but Jeremy’s death was the one that had scarred her most deeply. He was her first son, the first child born after their little Julia had died. He had been born in the early days of one of the worst periods of their marriage. His infancy had taken place at a time when Ross had kept Demelza outside his trust, when he had doubted the quality of his feelings for her, and then broken faith with her in a way that had broken her heart. Demelza had clung to her child’s love then, believing it to be the only love she had. They had reconciled, of course, but even so, Ross had always seen that the bond between Demelza and Jeremy had been different to those she had for her other children.

And then Jeremy’s death, so far away from her, and buried in a grave in foreign soil, had shattered her. She had grieved so deeply, so completely, and though she had been rebuilt, the cracks had always shown. No, it was no wonder that her wandering mind fixed on her dead son. Ross only hoped, selfishly, that none of Demelza’s other heartbreaks would loom as large in her muddled mind, for some of the others had been his fault, and some of them he had no wish to remember.

After her search for the loving cup, Demelza seemed to deteriorate more and more with each passing week.

She grew confused and anxious about running the household. Convinced that they were constantly short of staple foodstuffs, she ordered so much flour and tea that Ross was appealed to by Betsy Maria, who was driven to distraction over where to store the goods. The larder was overflowing, she reported, and the cellar too full of their winter’s vegetables to accommodate three further sacks of flour. Ross promised to speak to Demelza about it, and tasked Henry with finding more storage space.

Then Demelza took to ordering the same meals over and over again. Ross was served the same supper for three days straight until he realised that each morning, when Betsy Maria asked for orders, Demelza had forgotten what they had eaten the night before. When Ross asked Betsy Maria why she had not objected, her reply had been that she _had_ reminded her mistress, but that Demelza had been insistent.

“I couldn’ go agin her, sir,” she said, hands clutching at her apron as if she felt she was being reprimanded. “I knowed she’d ordered the same, but she said she hadn’, an’ I couldn’ go agin her.”

Finally Henry and Betsy Maria together declared that they could manage the household quite well between them. They seemed cheerful at the prospect, genuinely so, and Ross approved the idea at once, quietly proud that Henry had not only agreed to take on the added responsibility but had actually _proposed_ the plan.

Demelza fretted terribly when Ross told her about it. “I’ve always run the house,” she complained to him. “I don’t like being idle, Ross, you know that. And there’s no reason for it. I’m as able as I ever was. I don’t know why people keep saying I can’t manage things. It’s unkind.”

“My dear, you’ve ordered enough tea to last us to judgement day,” said Ross. He was trying to smile, to treat the matter light-heartedly, but there was no mirth in him. It _was_ unkind, to take this from Demelza. But it was an unkind illness that was taking her away from him, piece by piece. She had been running the household since before they had married, and done it well. Now she must stop, for her own sake and everybody else’s, but she was still right. It was not kind.

Demelza frowned, as if she couldn’t understand what he was saying. Ross waited. He was learning the kind of patience that had eluded him for much of his life. Lately, if she was prompted or hurried, Demelza tended to become upset or even angry. Emotional unbalance, Dwight had warned him, was to be expected, and it seemed to be increasing in proportion to her deteriorating memory. Demelza had never been short-tempered by nature, but now she was easily irritated if people tried to help her find words, or if she felt she was being treated as stupid or an invalid. Patience, a virtue that had never been Ross’s strong point, was essential now. He must be patient, and wait for her to find her own words while she still could.

At last Demelza’s expression cleared, and she smiled at him, the same brilliant smile as ever. “Tea,” she declared. “That’s what I meant to order. I must tell Henry to get some when he’s in Sawle next.” Her fretfulness forgotten, she went back to her knitting. She was making baby clothes for somebody, but she could never quite remember for whom. Her niece Esther needed them, she sometimes said, or Clowance. Neither of them were with child, but at least those names made sense. Sometimes she said the little frocks and mittens were for Verity, or for Jinny Carter – who had been Jinny Scoble for many years before she had died. Ross tried not to mind. At least it was an occupation that caused Demelza no anxiety.

“Keep her involved as much as you can,” he said privately to Henry later. “This is hard for her.”

“It’s hard for all of us!” Henry retorted, unusually sharp. He was usually so good-natured that now Ross looked at him askance. Henry had the grace to look apologetic, but then he scrubbed his hands across his face and heaved a great sigh. “I’m sorry, Father. I know it’s worst for her, and for you.”

“No, you’re right,” Ross said, looking closely at his son. “It _is_ hard for all of us.” He wondered if the weight of his new responsibilities was too much for Henry. He had given Henry so much of the daily burden of Nampara of late, and much less attention than the young man was used to receiving, but Henry had seemed to thrive under it. He still came to Ross for advice and instruction, but more and more he was able to manage the farm in a way that made Ross proud of him. He never said so; expressions of emotion had never come easily to Ross. Henry hadn’t seemed to need it, though. His confidence had grown, these past few months, and Ross had thought him happy enough. As happy as he _could_ be, given his mother’s illness.

“Has something happened, Henry?” he inquired now. “Something I ought to know about?”

Henry hesitated, and that was enough for Ross to know that something had indeed occurred, something that Henry would rather Ross not be told. It took some minutes to pull the truth from his son – that on one occasion, two days previously, Demelza had looked at him and not known who he was. It had passed quickly, Henry tried to reassure his father. It had been barely a moment before Demelza had looked at him with recognition again, and called him by name.

“Did she know she had forgotten you?” Ross asked. Henry shook his head. Ross closed his eyes against Henry’s pinched, unhappy expression. He could never quite decide which he found worse: when she realised she had forgotten something, or when she did not realise it. When she realised that her memory was playing her false – when she knew that she had misnamed someone or something, when she could not find the words she wanted – then she grew upset, tearful, and scared in a way that made Ross feel utterly, wretchedly helpless. But when she did not notice her lapses, when she called somebody by the wrong name and didn’t realise it, or when she asked for the same information again and again…

When that happened, Ross felt as though his heart was breaking. Demelza could not be upset by something she did not realise was happening, and that was good, but it was a sign that he was losing her. Little by little, something was chipping away at her brain. Like a miner with a pick, cutting away rubble, excavating a tunnel. Hollowing out Demelza’s wonderful mind and character and leaving less and less of her intact.

On the first day of March, a letter came from Andrew, Verity’s son, to say that his mother had died peacefully in her sleep. Geoffrey Charles rode over from Trenwith that afternoon to say that he was going to the funeral, and that Ross was welcome to join him.

“Of course I can’t go,” said Ross, impatient with Geoffrey Charles because every ounce of his patience was reserved for Demelza, these days. “It’s kind of you to offer, and if it was only the distance I’d agree at once. But we’d have to be gone one night at least. I’m not young enough to make the trip to Falmouth and back in one day. Two nights would be easier, but you must see for yourself that I can’t be away for that long.”

“Dwight Enys says you need a rest,” Geoffrey Charles argued. “Or at the very least, a change of scenery.” They were in the parlour, Ross and Geoffrey Charles and Henry. Through the window they could see Demelza, pottering about in her garden, coaxing it back to life after a succession of spring storms. “Truly, Ross,” Geoffrey Charles went on, “is she as bad as all that, that you cannot leave her with a house full of servants and Henry?”

Ross shook his head irritably. “It’s not a question of how she is now,” he said. Fear nagged at him. What if he should return, he thought, and find himself a stranger to her? What if an absence, even for a night or two, caused her to look at him without recognition, when he returned? Even for a moment? It had not happened yet, not to Ross. Always she knew him, at once and without hesitation. But he could see the creeping decline, the worsening of her memory and linguistic abilities. The servants were all accustomed, now, to reminding her of their names when she stared at them blankly, trying in vain to recollect their names and faces even for those who had been faithful servants for years. Every day, now, Ross could see her trying to reach for a word and finding it gone. Only yesterday she had asked Betsy Maria to fetch a shawl from the bedroom, but the word ‘shawl’ had been lost to her. She had been able to describe it, but not name it. Her frustration had been immense, and her tears bitter.

Ross knew that his fear might well be exaggerated. No doubt Dwight would tell him so. But there was a firm foundation to it, for the decline had worsened since Christmas and every week, it seemed, brought some marked sign of it. He did not see how he could risk leaving her. Not even for Verity’s funeral.

“You must go, Papa,” urged Henry. “You know Mama would want you to go. We’ll get along without you for one or two nights. I promise, we’ll take good care of her.”

“Of course you must go,” said Demelza, when Ross tentatively raised the idea at supper. It had been a good day, relatively speaking, which was the only reason Ross brought it up. Demelza talked with Henry without once calling him the wrong name. She had not become too upset or frustrated with herself over losing words. She had eaten dinner without prompting, and had spent the afternoon in her garden, undisturbed by lack of language and unimpeded by a faulty memory. On another day, Ross would not dream of upsetting the delicate balance of her emotions by suggesting he went away, but today she seemed well enough. With Geoffrey Charles and Henry’s urgings in mind, and with the strong inclination to go to the funeral of his dearest cousin, he took advantage of Demelza’s good day to make the suggestion to her.

“Henry and I will be fine,” Demelza went on, smiling across the table at her son. “It’s only for one night, you said? Of course we’ll be fine.” She was toying with her food, Ross noticed, pushing it around the plate rather than eating. He chose not to comment. “Besides,” Demelza added, “I have a letter you can take to Verity for me. It will be quicker than going by post.”

Ross met Henry’s eyes, but neither of them said anything. Demelza had forgotten, in the space of a minute, that Verity was now dead. It was not an unusual lapse, but it was still painful to hear. It would be more painful still if they drew her attention to it, and Ross did not need to warn Henry against doing so. They had learned that it was sometimes better to stay quiet, and avoid an upset. They learned by trial and error, for when Ross had asked Dwight, some time before, whether they were right to let Demelza be ignorant of her mistakes, or whether they should correct her and try to help her maintain her old memories and forge new ones. Dwight had given Ross a helpless shrug.

“If I knew that,” he had said, “I should be far in advance of the current state of medicine.”

So they fumbled through as best they could, and succeeded in varying degrees. Sometimes Ross lost patience and snapped at her, but usually he managed to curb his tongue. It was not her fault, he reminded himself constantly, and if anybody deserved gentleness, it was she. So when he prepared to leave with Geoffrey Charles, to go to Verity’s funeral, he bit back his impatience at Demelza asking, for the fifth time that morning, why he was going to Falmouth. Instead he took her hands in his and kissed her chastely.

“I shall be back for supper tomorrow,” he said, as he had said many times already that morning. “Henry knows when I’m expected. He’ll remind you.”

“I’m not entirely an invalid yet,” Demelza retorted. But she kissed him again, and waved him off with a smile. Ross gripped his reins tightly as they rode away, fear churning in his gut, and he pretended not to see the look of sympathy that Geoffrey Charles gave him.

The funeral in Falmouth was well-attended, and Ross was heartened to see so many people there. Though Verity’s stepson was away at sea, her stepdaughter Esther was there with her husband and children, and of course Verity’s own son and his family. Then there were friends, both Verity’s and a few that remained of Andrew senior, who had predeceased his wife some years before. Verity had been popular and well-known, even in her declining years when she had been confined to her home and then, more and more, to her bed. Afterwards, Ross and Geoffrey Charles went back to Andrew’s house for the night, and the three of them stayed up late, talking and sharing a bottle of brandy.

Geoffrey Charles and Andrew rarely saw each other these days, each tied down by family and by business, but the cousins had always got along well enough. Ross, watching them both, was struck by how like and unlike their Poldark parents they were. There was enough of Verity and of Francis in each of them that it made Ross think back to his youth, before things had become complicated – before Elizabeth had entered their lives. And yet his cousins’ children were different from their parents, too. Geoffrey Charles was steadier than his father, tempered by the deaths of both his parents and then by an army career. Andrew was less patient than his mother, and perhaps less generous of other people’s faults. But they were both fine men, and Ross was fond of them both.

“And how is Aunt Demelza?” Andrew asked at last, when the clock had struck twelve and he had just poured out the last drops from the brandy bottle. “Clowance wrote to me after Christmas, to let me know how things were. Is she…” He trailed off, flourishing a hand through the air, as if he did not know a delicate way of asking.

“She’s well enough,” said Ross. It was a lie, spoken without hesitation, because he hated to see pity in the faces of those who asked. Then he put his glass down and moved his leg a little, to ease his aching foot. “In truth, she’s growing worse by the week.” He hadn’t intended to admit it, but these men were his family, and they loved Demelza, as most people did who knew her. There was nothing of pity in the way Geoffrey Charles had repeatedly offered to do anything he could, nor in the letters Andrew occasionally sent to them both. They deserved the truth. “She doesn’t seem able to hold on to the idea that your mother is dead, Andrew,” he admitted, though it pained him to say it. “New memories…she can’t seem to hold onto them, these days.” Andrew looked down for a moment, into his glass of brandy. His expression was curiously blank, and Ross had no way of knowing what he felt. But then Andrew looked up again, and met Ross’s gaze as forthrightly as ever.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “If there’s anything I can do, you must tell me. For my mother’s sake, if for no other reason – but I’ve always been very fond of Aunt Demelza, you know.”

“I have added my weight to that offer before,” Geoffrey Charles chimed in. He wore a rueful smile. Ross felt no need to speak. He had declined Geoffrey Charles’s help before, and no doubt would do so again. He was stubborn; he could admit it to himself. He wanted to do as much as possible himself, for Demelza, and his pride made it hard to ask others for help. Eventually it would come, eventually he would have to engage a nurse, but until then – even afterwards, if Dwight was to be believed – there was little that anyone else could do. And trying to help might only hurt Andrew and Geoffrey Charles, as it was already hurting Henry and Ross. If Andrew visited this summer, or in the autumn, there was a chance – a strong chance – that Demelza would not recognise him. Geoffrey Charles she might know for a little longer, for she knew him better, but it would only be a matter of time before she looked at him without recognition. Then she would either remember them, only to grow distressed at the forgetting, or she would not remember, and so distress others by treating them as strangers.

Better for both Andrew and Geoffrey Charles to keep away. There was nothing they could do.

“We are managing so far,” he demurred. “Henry is a great help.” He picked up his glass, drained it, and put it back down. “And now, cousins, I must leave you and go to bed, or else I will hardly be able to stay upright in my saddle tomorrow.”

Ross reached Nampara earlier than he had anticipated the next day. He had told Henry to expect him by six, but it was nearly two hours before that when Ross sighted the old farmhouse and felt a weight lift from his shoulders. Though he was glad to have gone to Verity’s funeral, his cousin dear to him to the last, he felt the familiar sense of pleasure at coming home. A happiness to be returning to Nampara that could not be erased by his concern over what he would find.

But the pleasure did not last, for there was no welcome home. There was nobody to greet him in the farmyard, nobody to come running out to take his horse and to help him down. The farm buildings seemed deserted. Ross tied his horse to the stable door and went in through the kitchen, which was as empty as the farmyard. The house was quiet. Too quiet, the kind of silence that only fell when the house was empty. No sign of Demelza, or Henry, or any of the servants. The latest cat, Desdemona – named by Isabella-Rose – was asleep in front of the dying parlour fire, but the dog was gone. There was no trace of anybody. Ross shook away his shiver of fear, refusing to give in to it.

Then footsteps came along the passage, and Betsy Maria appeared. She looked startled to see him, and then relieved.

“Oh, sir,” she said. “Oh, sir, I’m that glad you’re home. Master Henry wanted to send someone to meet ee, but I said as how you’d like as not miss each other on the road.” Normally neat and tidy in appearance, now her hair was straggling out from under her cap, and her apron was a sorry, wrinkled thing.

“Where is everyone?” Ross asked.

“They’re all out lookin’, sir,” said Betsy Maria. “The missus…nobody’s seen the missus since before breakfast, sir.”

Ross’s first instinct was to go back outside, mount his horse once more and join the search parties. There were three, Betsy Maria told him, all with at least one person who Demelza knew well, in the hope that when she was found, she would not be unduly distressed by seeming to see strangers. Henry led one party, Ben Carter another, and Sam Carne’s eldest son led the third. Family, all three of them, by birth or marriage. Ross wanted to join them, but his ankle was throbbing, and he was more tired than he cared to admit from the two long rides, to Falmouth and back. Besides that, Betsy Maria suggested – and Ross had to agree –that his presence at Nampara would likely soothe much of the anxiety and fear that Demelza would almost certainly be feeling, when she was found and returned safely to her home.

“An’ you’d likely miss ‘em, sir,” Betsy Maria added. “Ben Carter got ‘em all set up, organised-like, but they’ve been lookin’ all day an’ they’ve started further afield, now.” She set a chair beside the fire for him and rattled the poker in the grate. “They’ll bring her home, sir,” she said confidently. “Let me fetch ee a cup of tea. No time at all, she’ll be here.”

Ross sat down and drank the tea that Betsy Maria brought him. His mind was whirling with possibilities, with likely and unlikely scenarios. Demelza might have stumbled and hurt herself. She might have wandered too far afield, might have forgotten where she was going, or how to get home again. She might have fallen down an abandoned mine shaft – there were enough of those about. She might have – she might have –

Too many ‘might haves’. Ross drank a second cup of tea, and a draught for the pain in his foot. The physical discomfort eased, but his mental anguish only increased with each passing minute. He should never have left her, he castigated himself. Not even for one night. Not even for Verity’s funeral. He pictured her cold, alone, injured. He should have been here. Anything might have happened to her.

This was the sign, he knew, that he would have to engage somebody whose sole job was to look after Demelza. She had slipped away despite the watchful eyes of Betsy Maria and the other indoor servants. She had gone unseen past the farm workers, past _Henry_ , who would surely have been keeping a closer eye on his mother than usual, in Ross’s absence. It was too much on top of their other work, he knew now. It was a bitter realisation. And he was bitter, too, at the knowledge that he himself could not take up the task of keeping Demelza safe. But there were too many calls on his time, even in his semi-retirement, and besides, these days he lacked the physical agility to keep up with her. A nurse was necessary, somebody trained and experienced in caring for somebody of Demelza’s position. Someone who would always remember that she was Lady Poldark, and treat her accordingly. Dwight had already mentioned that he knew of several suitable candidates. Ross must find one as soon as possible.

Daylight had faded by the time Demelza was brought home. She was wrapped in Henry’s coat, her hair loose, her feet bare and streaked with blood. Henry carried her into Nampara, his face grim, and refused to relinquish her until he laid her gently into her bed.

“Send for Dwight,” Ross ordered, and someone scurried to obey. Henry sank onto his knees beside the bed and bent his head, as if he was praying. Ross put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, but that was all the attention he could spare for his son. Demelza’s teeth were chattering, and he piled blankets on top of her and held her hand when she reached for him. “You worried us, my dear,” he said, trying to be gentle, trying not to let his fear show in his voice. “Where on earth were you going?”

“I was trying to find Julia,” she whispered. Her voice sounded hoarse, as if she had been talking too much. Ross squeezed her hand and closed his eyes, praying for strength to a God he wasn’t sure he believed in. “I thought I heard her,” Demelza went on. “Crying…it was so windy, Ross, and she always hated the wind…I didn’t remember she was gone.” He looked at her in time to see a single tear leaking from the corner of her eye. “I didn’t remember,” she said again. “And when I did, I…I didn’t know where I was.”

He could say nothing. He held her hand tightly in his and kept his fear and his bitterness locked away inside. Henry moved to go, but Ross reached out with his free hand and kept him close. For once he didn’t want to be alone with Demelza, and Henry looked half-shattered, as if all that was keeping him together was being here with them both. They stayed together while the fire was stoked to a blaze, while Demelza sipped at a broth that Betsy Maria brought her. Only when Dwight arrived did Ross and Henry leave, banished by the doctor.

“She was halfway to Bodmin, Papa,” Henry told him, as Ross poured them both a glass of brandy. “Her shoes – I think she wore slippers, they must have worn out. There was no sign of them when I found her.” His hand shook. Ross helped him hold his glass steady; a swig of the brandy helped. “I swear, Papa, we were watching her. We were all watching her. I don’t know _how_ she got past us all.”

“It’s not your fault,” Ross assured him. Henry sagged, as if a burden had been lifted from him, and Ross urged him into a chair. “It’s not your fault,” he repeated, because it was true. It was nobody’s fault. Demelza had always been light-footed. She was still as spry and nimble as she had been thirty years before, and it was not Henry’s fault nor anyone else’s that she had slipped past them. Just like it was nobody’s fault that she was ill. There was nothing they could have done to prevent it, nothing they could do to ease it. Ross wanted to rage at his impotence, at his loss, but he was too weary for rage. He was too sorrowful.

“How do you _bear_ it?” Henry asked, voice strangled with pain. “She’s slipping further and further away every day.”

“I don’t have a choice,” said Ross, filling Henry’s glass again. He thought of Demelza upstairs, tended to by Dwight. She had wandered off, lost in her memories, and seemed only half-aware of the lapse. Henry was right; she was slipping away from them more and more. She was still _Demelza_ , still his beloved wife, but soon enough only he would hold the memories of their shared life together. How long, he wondered, would she still be Demelza if she no longer remembered all the things that had made her who she was? And if he was struggling, nearly halfway through his seventies and with a lifetime of loss behind him, how must Henry be feeling?

“Henry,” he said, quickly because he heard footsteps slowly coming down the stairs, “Henry, I want you to know – I’m proud of you.” He had never said it enough to Jeremy, and had lost his chance to rectify that. He had never said it enough to Henry, but there was still time. “All you’re doing with the farm, and the mine – I couldn’t bear this without your support.” He had time to see Henry’s startled expression before Dwight came in, and Ross was glad of the excuse to turn away.

“Keep her in bed for a few days,” was Dwight’s instruction. “Off her feet until they heal. She’s chilled, but there’s no fever. Not yet, anyway.” He looked weary, and weighed down. Ross wished he could trust any other doctor; Dwight deserved to rest more. But he couldn’t trust even Dwight’s worthy deputy, Dr Hancock. Clever and able as Hancock was, Ross would trust nobody but Dwight with Demelza. “I’ve written you an advertisement,” Dwight said then, and fumbled in his pocket for a piece of paper. “Read it over first, make any changes you think necessary…but I think it’s for the best, Ross. This is a bad sign.”

It _was_ a bad sign. Ross waved the paper away, let Henry take it, and went upstairs to be with Demelza. She was asleep, but that didn’t matter. He picked up a book and settled down to read.

Dwight’s advertisement needed no changes. It was discreet, concise, and unemotional. Ross sent it to the newspapers and magazines that Dwight recommended, and tried not to think about the necessity of it. It was easier to ignore it, for a while, for Demelza’s chill developed into a fever and a cold, and she was confined to bed for over a week. There was no risk of her wandering off then – and no risk that she could do so silently even if she had been left alone for more than a few moments at a time, her coughs and sneezes loud enough to make stealth impossible. But such a state couldn’t last forever and, sooner than Ross liked, she was up and about again, back to her normal routines as if nothing had changed.

They kept a closer watch on her than ever now, but it was not easy. Demelza chaffed at the observation, grew irritable when she could hardly go to the earth closet without somebody loitering nearby, and more than once she raised her voice when she discovered that Ross set one of the servants to watching her on the occasions when he could not watch her himself. She only ever did so with Ross, never shouted at Henry or the servants, but Ross could never decide if that was a good thing or a bad. To be so singled out for her ire was frustrating, and sometimes he was hard pressed to keep his own voice low and even in response to her, but at least she never gave him the terrible blank stare, lacking all recognition, that she increasingly bore when addressing others.

Letters of application began to appear. Over the course of March and into April, a small but promising number of letters arrived in response to the advertisement. Dwight dismissed several at once as inappropriate or unsuitable, but the others, he said to Ross, seemed suitable enough, and so Ross sent inquiries out to former employers, to see which of these nurse-companions might best suit the situation.

Demelza saw no need for it. She admitted to her faltering memory, and wept many bitter tears at what she perceived as her own failings, but she strongly protested against the idea of having a nurse.

“Like I’m a child, Ross,” she complained to him. “I know I get confused, and I know – I _know_ I’m forgetting things. But I’m not so old or ill that I need a nursemaid.”

“She would be a companion,” Ross corrected her. “Not a nursemaid.” A companion to watch over her, to make sure she ate her meals, which she no longer did at all without prompting. A companion to walk with her when she insisted on walking, or to sit quietly while Demelza rocked in her chair for hours at a time. Someone to ensure she was dressed appropriately – she had taken to forgetting her stockings more often than not, and once or twice he’d caught her staring at the buttons of a blouse as if she didn’t know how to work them. These were things that would only become worse over time.

And that was only the practical side of it, the physical side. Help with those things could be provided, by the right person, but nobody could help her with her failing memory. They could only try to keep her physically safe and healthy. He ought to try to be optimistic, hard though it was. He ought to hope that perhaps one of these applicants, if Demelza got on with them, could help a little with the swings in Demelza’s mood that seemed to happen more and more. Cheerfulness to tears in a heartbeat, frustration bubbling up into anger, at herself and at others. Perhaps a good companion would be able to coax some tranquillity from her.

But so much of it was beyond anyone’s reach. Sometimes Demelza talked about things from years ago, conversations they’d had or events that had happened, as if it was all current still. She’d reminisce about a party they’d been to, as if it had just been last week instead of years or even decades ago. She sometimes came to Ross fretful because of some problem or difficulty that had long since passed out of his own memory. More and more she spoke about Jeremy – never _quite_ suggesting that she thought him still alive in the present moment, often more that her mind was clearly drifting into the past, but it was unsettling for Ross, and made him unhappy. He tried not to show it, but it made him unhappy. It still hurt to think about Jeremy. Perhaps it would always hurt; perhaps that was why Demelza was drawn to earlier, happier memories of their first son.

“I don’t want this,” Demelza said. “I don’t want this, Ross.”

“I know.” He reached out and took her hand. They were alone in the parlour, looking through the letters. Tears glistened in her eyes, and she gripped his hand tightly. “I know, my love,” he said gently, tenderly. “Neither do I. And if you were always as you are today, I should never dream of it. But…”

“But,” Demelza repeated, a bitter note in her voice. “But often I am not. Often I wake up and I don’t remember…I don’t remember…” She tightened her grasp on his hand. It was painful, but Ross didn’t try to get loose. There was a frantic look about her suddenly, that strange wildness that seemed to come upon her when she was most distraught. “I am so afraid,” she said. Ross inhaled to speak, but she shook her head. “I am so afraid that one day I will wake up and not remember you,” she told him.

She had spoken of it only once before, and he had assumed – he had _hoped_ – that she had forgotten the likelihood of it. But she had not forgotten. This, of all things, she had not forgotten.

He kissed her hand. “It may not happen, my dear. “ Tears stung at his eyes. His throat was constricted, his voice hoarse. “And if it does,” he forced himself to continue, “then I’ll remind you. As often as you need.”

Demelza spoke in a whisper, but her words were clear. “If I ever forget you, I might as well be dead. I’ll want to be dead.”

Ross reeled away from her, letters scattering to the ground as he pulled his hand from hers and staggered to his feet. He was sickened to his very core to hear her saying such a thing. And yet had he not thought it himself? Had he not thought that she might as well be dead, if and when her mind deteriorated to the point where, of all people, she no longer recognised _him_? Her husband for the past half-century, the person who had known her longest and best. She had been just thirteen when he had brought her to Nampara, and it was unimaginable that this illness might remove him from her memories. To see her looking at him without knowing who he was…yes, he’d thought it might be better – for him, for her, for their children – if she were to die rather than lose all of those memories. But it had been a fleeting thought, intolerable when it had come to him, and he had castigated himself for selfishness before the thought had even fully coalesced in his mind. To hear her speak it out loud was more than he could bear.

“Don’t say that,” he ordered. “Don’t ever say that again.” He was crying, and so was she. It wasn’t good for her to become so upset, it wearied her so dreadfully, but Ross was unable to comfort her. He was battling his own storm. He tried to hide his feelings from her, turned away and tried to breathe. Demelza wept quietly, and Ross’s heart tore itself into pieces. Then, at last, it passed. He regained control of himself. Crying would not help her, would not help the situation, and he was determined to be a source of strength for her. He found a handkerchief, wiped his eyes, and went to sit beside her again. “Here, dry your eyes,” he coaxed her. “We must look through these letters. Look, this one came from London this morning. This lady has met Dwight before, she says, when he was asked to consult on a patient there. We could ask Clowance and Edward to meet her, perhaps.”

Demelza dutifully dried her eyes, but the speaking of the unspeakable thought could not be forgotten. It lingered between them for some days, until at last it seemed to slip from Demelza’s mind in the way that most of her memories seemed to, these days. Ross didn’t trouble her again with the letters of application. He went through them alone, or consulted Henry and Dwight, and when the decision was made, some weeks later, he presented it to Demelza as a fait accompli.

“A nursemaid, Ross,” she complained again, but Ross was firm. That morning she had called Henry ‘Francis’, and for the past week she had three times tried to go in search of her errant dog Garrick. Twice she had been stopped before she got much further than the garden, but on the third occasion, she had somehow escaped all watchers yet again, and it was only pure good fortune that she had wandered near to Wheal Leisure, and was spotted there by miners milling about for the change of core. Ross felt barely able to leave her for a moment, even to let her go to the earth closet, and he knew he could not sustain such watchfulness. A companion, a nurse, whatever Demelza chose to call it, such a person was increasingly necessary.

And so, in June, just as summer was beginning to spread across the exposed northern Cornish coast, Miss Maud Fletcher came to Nampara. Henry went to meet her in Truro, driving the wagon, and they arrived in time to take tea with Demelza and Ross. Miss Fletcher, who came highly recommended and had been approved by Clowance after an interview, was a small, trim woman of perhaps thirty years. She was polite and gentle in her manners, called Demelza ‘Lady Poldark’ and ‘ma’am’, and seemed unbothered by the way Demelza kept forgetting her name.

“In my experience, it’s common that new memories are the hardest to keep hold of,” Miss Fletcher said to Ross later, when he had taken her into the library to discuss her duties and to apologise that Demelza couldn’t seem to keep Miss Fletcher’s name in her head. “I shan’t mind if she can never remember my name. It’s names, is it, sir, that she mostly can’t remember?” Ross confirmed it. “And your son, Sir Ross – Master Henry. He said that she often seems to be living in the past, so to speak.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s how it seems.” It was becoming impossible for Demelza to remember what had happened yesterday, but her old memories, memories spread across a lifetime together...those she retained. Still, it spoke well of Miss Fletcher that she had coaxed that information from Henry, and had already formed an assessment of the situation with Demelza. It showed intelligence, at any rate. “I want to make it clear, Miss Fletcher,” he said, “that my wife is to be treated with the utmost dignity, at all times. She is a lady, despite her…her infirmity, and I wish you to remember that.”

“Of course, sir.”

“We’ve tried our best, but she has a habit of wandering.” He hoped that Miss Fletcher was a good enough walker to keep up with Demelza who, well into her sixtieth decade, was still as nimble as she had been at thirty. “We’ve tried our best,” he repeated. But his best had not been good enough, as Dwight had warned him it would not be. Demelza was so much more active than Ross was these days. He was in too much pain to physically keep up with her. And the way she kept speaking about Jeremy, about Julia…that gave him another kind of pain.

“This companion will be as much to ease the load on you as she will be to care for Demelza,” Dwight had said to him, some weeks before when Ross had been deliberating between two candidates, each on paper seeming just as qualified as the other. “Ross, you’re looking worn out. I know you want to help her, but sometimes the best help is in recognising you can’t do everything.”

He couldn’t do everything. And so here was Miss Fletcher.

She was settled into the room that had once been Clowance’s. It was closest to the master bedroom, and she could be summoned in an instant if she was needed. Demelza still protested that she needed no assistance in dressing herself, and Ross chose not to argue with her at present. It was enough, for now, that Demelza seemed not to mind the addition of a stranger to their household. It was enough that she was not surprised by the appearance of a strange face at the breakfast table, and that her complaints were few and uttered only at night, to Ross, when nobody else could hear.

But after a fortnight or so, during which time Miss Fletcher quietly and gently began to insinuate herself into Demelza’s daily life, Demelza began to forget she had ever protested against a companion. She often called Miss Fletcher by another name – Mrs Kemp, or Jinny, or Jane Gimlett – but she seemed to grow so accustomed to having that quiet lady by her side that Ross half-wondered if her confused mind had somehow woven Miss Fletcher into the whole fabric of her memory. It was strange, but he couldn’t protest against it. Not when Miss Fletcher carefully coaxed Demelza into eating a proper lunch, or when they went walking together and came home without incident.

These were small things to be grateful for, but he was grateful nonetheless. There was so little to cling to, but now, at least, he could be sure that she couldn’t wander off and fall down an abandoned mine shaft. Now he could go into the farmyard to help Henry, or go into the library for an hour after dinner to read, without worrying about what Demelza would be doing. As the weeks went on and he was able to rest more, he realised just how wearied he had become. Dwight had been right; this appointment was good for him, as well as for Demelza.

Still, nothing could halt the decline. Miss Fletcher slotted into the household as if she had been part of it for years, and Demelza liked her and accepted her help, but nothing could help when Demelza’s memory played her false. Each month – each _week_ – seemed to bring some new sign of her deterioration. She forgot how to lace her shoes and her stays. She stopped being able to play the piano. She forgot that Clowance and Bella lived far away with their own families, and asked again and again where they were. Whenever the wind blew hard enough to rattle the windows in their frames, she wept for Julia. Often she wandered from room to room in Nampara, looking for something, but she could never explain what she was looking for, the answer slipping away before the question had even been put to her.

“I’m just looking,” she would say if Ross pressed her. “I’m looking for…for something. Do you know, Ross, it’s quite gone out of my head? And I’m sure it was something important. I’ll remember by and by. P’haps it’s in Jeremy’s room.” And she would go upstairs, to the room that had been Jeremy’s, and there she would sit for hours on end, quiet and unmoving.  

By September she had to be told that Henry was her child. She knew she had a son Henry, but she could no longer recall his face.

“But this isn’t Henry,” she insisted, when both Ross and Miss Fletcher tried to correct her. “As if I don’t know my own son, Ross!”

“He _is_ your son,” Ross said, half an eye on Henry’s distressed face. He was, as ever, torn between the urge to try to make Demelza remember, to keep stressing that she was mistaken, and the knowledge that if she realised her lapse, her anguish would be acute. But Henry was so distressed, his jaw clenched and his eyes wet. Ross had to try. “Demelza, my love…this is Henry.”

“Don’t be silly, Ross,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “Henry’s just a child.”

“Mama, it’s me,” Henry choked out. “I’m Henry.”

“But Henry’s just a little boy,” protested Demelza, holding out her hand as if to measure his height. “You’re as old as my other son. Do you know Jeremy?”

“Here, ma’am,” said Miss Fletcher, leaning closer and touching Demelza’s arm gently. “You were showing me how you arrange flowers in such a way. I never saw anyone with such a knack with flowers.”

“Was I? There’s no trick to it, really.” Thus distracted, Demelza paid her son no more attention, and Henry slipped away without further protest. Ross followed him, but could offer no words of consolation when he found Henry shaking from the force of his grief. All he could do was hold his son.

And Henry was not the last face Demelza forgot. She knew none of the servants by name any longer. Though she remembered Betsy Maria Martin’s face, and those of one or two other long-standing servants, she could never recall their names, and each morning Miss Fletcher had to introduce herself anew. Demelza became increasingly frightened by feeling surrounded by what she perceived as strangers in her home. She clung to those few servants whose faces she could remember, and she clung to Ross, growing tearful whenever he was away from her for long.

She was happiest when she could be distracted into some activity, and yet the things she could do grew fewer and fewer, her hands less nimble than before and her mind faltering at complexity. Sometimes Ross found Miss Fletcher secretly creating a mess of Demelza’s work basket, so that Demelza could sit and sort it out again. Sometimes she would set out coloured threads or yarns for Demelza to play with. Demelza could still knit, and a pile of plain-worked squares grew slowly, but often Demelza was sidetracked into arranging and rearranging them into different combinations. At least it kept her calm, and gave her pleasure.

“There’s less and less of my friend left in her,” Caroline said desolately to Ross, one day in the early autumn when she came to visit. She came to visit most weeks, these days, with the unspoken intent of savouring her time with Demelza. He could see how much it tired her – Caroline was too old to be traipsing back and forth from Killewarren to Nampara so often – but he would never criticise her for it. “How do you bear it, Ross?”

Ross listened to the sounds coming from the parlour. Demelza was singing, one of her old favourites, a song she knew so well that her faulty memory could not – yet – make her lose a lyric or a note. Dwight was there too, and Miss Fletcher. Demelza still knew Dwight, could still recognise his face. She knew Caroline too, but less surely. There was that flicker of blankness, signalling that some day in the future, Demelza would not know Caroline’s face. Perhaps next week, or the week after, she would have to be reminded that the woman sitting beside her was her friend Caroline. Perhaps in a few months, she would insist that Caroline was somebody else entirely.

“Henry asked me that, that day she went missing,” he said at last. “I told him I have no choice.”

“Oh, Ross.”

“She’s still Demelza. She’s still my…” He couldn’t finish. His wife, his love, his cornerstone. Life without Demelza was still unthinkable, even though they had lived with this affliction for over a year. He could not imagine Nampara without her. He could not imagine waking up in the morning and not being able to reach out and touch her.

And yet worse than that, worse than the likelihood of having to live without her, was the awful probability that she might linger on like this, in this twilight of life, for some years to come. There was nothing physically wrong with her. She was a little frailer these days, and thinner than Ross liked because she seemed to have so little appetite, but otherwise her body was as sound as anyone of her age. Her heart and lungs were well, she walked without a cane, her eyesight was clear, and she was rarely ill.

There was some classical story, he seemed to recall, about a perilous sea journey in a narrow strait, with a monster at either side and no safe path to be found, only a desperate hurtling through the passage in the hopes that the monsters would be too slow. That was how it was for him, now, though for him speed was no ally at all, and there was no safe destination awaiting him beyond the monsters of death or senility. There was only an existence without Demelza, wholly or partly so, and it was all so utterly abhorrent to Ross that he refused to think of it often.

How did he bear it? He had to. If he faltered for more than a few brief moments, on rare occasions, he would falter forever. For so long Demelza had been the rock upon which he leaned when uncertain or troubled. If he could not be the same for her now, he would be a despicable being, ungrateful for all she had brought him over their years together and undeserving of the love she still showed him.

“Ross, will you read this letter to me?” Demelza asked him, a few days later. “The words are…I never knew Clowance to have such a wriggly sort of hand. I can’t make it out.” Ross went to sit beside her, patting his pockets in search of his glasses, and hid his wince when she added: “Honest, Ross, her handwriting’s worse than before she went to school. I do wonder what they’re teaching her.”

“Perhaps she was just in a hurry,” Ross suggested, choosing not to point out that Clowance had not been in school for many years. The handwriting, when Demelza gave him the letter, was perfectly fine. She was finding it harder and harder to connect written words with their meaning, losing the skill she had learned so many years ago, before they had married. But Demelza leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder as he read the letter aloud, and afterwards she slipped her hand into his and made a happy sound.

“Dear life, I don’t know half the people she’s talking about,” she said, “but she sounds content, don’t she? I hope she is.”

“I’m sure she is,” he assured her. The people Clowance talked about – her husband Edward, her twin sons, friends she had made both in London and in the country at Edward’s estate – all of these Demelza had known and remembered, a year before. Now all of that was gone. Lately Demelza’s mind had fixed Clowance at fourteen or fifteen years of age, and that seemed to be permanent, though in other ways she still drifted backwards and forwards. Sometimes she knew Henry to be a man grown, though she could still never remember his face, but sometimes she laughed when Miss Fletcher made an idle comment about her son Henry, and claimed she had no such child. Sometimes Isabella-Rose was deemed to be a twelve-year-old, still thumping away on the old spinet, and sometimes she was a young adult making her debut in the theatrical world.

She almost never remembered what her children were doing _now_. Often she asked after one or another of them, displeased that they were not at home where they belonged. Sometimes Ross told her the truth, sometimes he didn’t. There was no right or wrong in his decision, only a judgement about what sort of a day she was having.

Now she squeezed his hand tightly and lifted her head from his shoulder. “I’m so glad they’re all happy and healthy,” she remarked. “’Tis a blessing, isn’t it, Ross? After Julia.” She brushed a kiss against his cheek. Ross lifted their joined hands and kissed her knuckles. Then, because that wasn’t enough, he turned his head and kissed her mouth. They rubbed noses together for a moment, and Ross could feel Demelza smiling. “Dear Ross,” she murmured fondly. She kissed him again, a brush of lips against lips. “I feel like the luckiest woman in the world, just at present,” she said. “‘Tis a lovely feeling.”

“I’m the lucky one,” he returned, fear and grief and loss making a lump in his throat. “I’m the lucky one.”

“Three healthy, happy children.” She laughed a little, barely more than a chuckle. “I was so afeared to tell you about Jeremy, d’you remember?” Ross shook his head, but it wasn’t a simple denial. It was a refutation of all that she meant. Three healthy children indeed, and three there were yet living and well, but Demelza didn’t mean Henry. She counted Jeremy instead. “’Twas after the trial,” Demelza remembered, “and we were so in debt…I was that scared, after we lost Julia, and you said you didn’t want another.”

“Yes,” Ross said with difficulty. “Yes, I remember. It was months before you told me. But of course I was happy.” He cleared his throat as Demelza put her head back on his shoulder. “And then you nearly killed yourself in the boat, giving birth.”

“It don’t seem like sixteen years have passed since then,” she said. It was closer to forty-five years. Ross didn’t try to coax her back into the present; she was happy, dwelling in her memories. She was happy, thinking of herself as mother to a boy just growing into a young man. “Where _is_ Jeremy today, Ross? I’ve not seen him all day.”

“I know no more than you, my dear,” he said. It wasn’t a lie. Whether there was a heaven after death or not, only the dead could know it. Still, experience had taught him that it was best to nudge her away from the subject of Jeremy, so he asked her to show him how her knitted squares were progressing. It was hardly something he would normally care about, but Demelza had never yet grown upset when knitting or rearranging her squares. She ruminated about colour placement, showed him the piles of squares, and he was content to see her so happily occupied.

It never lasted, of course, and nor was it always easy or even possible to distract her from thoughts of Jeremy, or from other provocations. So much upset her these days. She forgot where she put something down, and became convinced that people were moving things behind her back. She called for Garrick for hours, sometimes, and pleaded with Ross that the dog should no longer be denied entrance to the house. Whenever the wind howled particularly loudly, she tried to wander off in search of Julia, and over and over she begged for Ross’s forgiveness for her foolishness of going to tend Francis, Elizabeth and Geoffrey Charles.

And then as autumn set in, and grey days and stormy weather began to batter at Nampara, Ross discovered that there was something worse than Demelza forgetting that Jeremy was dead.

The first time it happened, he was in the library with Geoffrey Charles, who had ridden over to see if Ross had a particular reference book he needed. It was the sound they heard first: a cry increasing in volume and in grief, a wail of desperation that rose up into a howl. It was almost unearthly, and had Ross been ten years younger and his foot less painful, he would have sprung to his feet and gone in search of whatever fiend had caused Demelza to make such a noise – for he had no doubt it was Demelza whose pain was filling the house. But he was past his prime, and his foot ached with the autumn dampness, and when he tried to leap up from his chair, he was forced back down by a stab of sharp pain.

“Let me help,” Geoffrey Charles advised him. Usually Ross scorned any offered assistance, but now Demelza was wailing and he had to get to her. He let his cousin help him upright, and when it became clear that Ross had jarred his foot somehow, he allowed Geoffrey Charles to support him through to the parlour. There they found Demelza on her knees on the floor, hunched over, her arms around herself and tears streaming down her face. Miss Fletcher knelt beside her, trying to calm her, clearly anguished by Demelza’s turmoil. Betsy Maria had come running, and Henry, and they all stared, helpless, as Demelza’s sorrow tore through her.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Miss Fletcher said, raising her voice to be heard above Demelza’s sobs. “She – she looked quite queer all of a sudden, and she said to me…she said ‘Jeremy’s dead, isn’t he?’, and I said he was, and she seemed to just collapse, sir.”

“Demelza,” Ross said helplessly. He cast away his stick and ignored the pain in his foot. He got down onto the floor somehow, and tried to touch her. But Demelza flinched away from him, moaning wordlessly. He had never seen her like this before. He couldn’t remember when she had last refused to seek comfort with him. Even in these past eighteen months, as her mind had deteriorated, she had still come to him. She had always seemed to gain comfort in his arms, in holding his hand, in the steady support he had tried to provide for her. But now she shunned him, and mourned for her lost son, and Ross could do nothing.

Miss Fletcher collected herself after a few more moments, sending Henry for the sedative Dwight had prescribed, and asking Betsy Maria to make a hot posset and to heat a flat iron for Demelza’s bed.

“Best place for you now, ma’am,” she said to Demelza. But Demelza was a dead weight, uncooperative when Miss Fletcher tried to assist her off the floor. Her tears seemed never-ending, though she was a little quieter now. Ross reached for her again, and once again was rebuffed. His foot throbbed, and his knee, from his position on the floor. Demelza wept as if her heart had been ripped in two, and Ross’s heart broke for her, and for himself, all over again. Miss Fletcher tried once more to persuade Demelza to rise, but Demelza seemed almost unaware of what was happening. She had withdrawn too far into her own mind, at least for the moment, and neither Ross nor Miss Fletcher could reach her.

It was Geoffrey Charles who got her off the floor, in the end. He bent over and swept her into his arms as if she weighed no more than an infant. He carried her from the room, and Miss Fletcher hurried after to direct him to the right bedroom. Ross was left on the parlour floor, bitter at his own helplessness and unable to get up until Henry came back with the sedative and realised Ross’s predicament. But even with assistance, Ross’s foot refused to hold his weight, and he had to let Henry pull him up from the floor and get him, somehow, into a chair.

“Damn this foot,” he swore, lifting his foot to investigate what damage had been done. The ankle was already swelling. It was better to be angry with his own weaknesses than to lash out at anyone else, or so he felt, and he glowered down at his injured foot with increasing resentment. Without that old injury, he would be able to do much more for Demelza, he would be able to –

To do nothing more. There was nothing more that could be done by anyone, and he knew that too well to deceive himself. He dispatched Henry upstairs with Demelza’s sedative, and then sat alone until Henry and Geoffrey Charles both came back into the parlour. Demelza was not asleep, they reported, but well on the way, and Miss Fletcher would stay with her. They both looked shaken. Even Geoffrey Charles, the stalwart soldier, looked pale and unhappy. He paced across the length of the parlour, unable to remain still. Henry knelt down to inspect Ross’s foot, and Ross allowed it grudgingly but shook his head when Henry suggested sending for a doctor.

"It will pass,” he dismissed. “It always does.” In truth, the pain wasn’t easing off yet, and he doubted whether he would be able to stand on it for the rest of the day. But there were more important considerations at present. “Were you here, Henry? Did you see what happened?”

“It’s as Miss Fletcher told you,” Henry said, not meeting Ross’s eyes. “She realised that Jeremy is dead, and she became distraught.”

“But that _sound_ ,” Geoffrey Charles protested, coming to a halt close by. “I’ve heard some cries in my time, Henry, but never anything quite so…so…”

“Yes.” Henry still wouldn’t look at Ross. “She’s made it once before. Once. Long ago. I was only a child, but I remember it.” The pieces fell into place. Henry must have been present, all those years ago, when Demelza opened the letter and discovered Jeremy’s death. And now she had been put through that discovery anew, her mind cruelly tricking her into that state of anguish and loss and despair. “This _damn_ illness,” Henry said suddenly, viciously. “I almost wish –,”

“Don’t ever say it,” Geoffrey Charles commanded. But Ross caught the glance Geoffrey Charles gave him, and he knew that Geoffrey Charles, too, had entertained that awful wish. He wished he could be angry with his cousin for thinking it, wished he could be angry with Henry for nearly saying it, but he felt too hollowed out and weary. There was little anger left in him, these days.

He shook away the apology Henry tried to mutter, then he tried to stand again, tentatively, careful as he eased weight onto the bad foot. But once again, it refused to take his weight. The pain was, if anything, worse, and forbade any attempt at walking. Perhaps he had jarred it in that awkward attempt at getting out of his chair. Perhaps it had been when he had knelt down beside Demelza. Either way, some mischief had been done, and this time when Henry once again urged him to send for a doctor, he allowed it. Geoffrey Charles went for a doctor – not Dwight, but his colleague Hancock, who was competent enough that Ross had no fear he would leap to a surgical solution for what might be only a sprained ankle.

Dr Hancock declared it to be a fracture. He gave Ross a pair of crutches, but instructed him to remain in bed for two weeks at least. Ross, never an easy patient, gave in with bad grace. Still, there was some comfort in settling into bed beside Demelza, who was sleeping peacefully enough after her sedative. Though it was barely past noon and Ross chafed at his restriction, at least he had an excuse to be close at hand should Demelza wake up in distress.

But when Demelza at last awoke, just before supper, she had forgotten the events of the morning. Surprised to find herself in bed, alarmed to hear that Ross had broken a bone in his foot, and still sluggish from the sleeping draught, Ross found it easy enough to persuade her to have supper here with him.

“Henry won’t mind being alone for a meal,” he told her, “but I do.”

“No, you never did like eating alone,” Demelza teased. “I recall that’s how we first got to know each other properly, you not wanting your supper by yourself.” Ross smiled at her, shrugged his shoulders and pretended he felt as light-hearted as she. Sometimes the hardest thing to bear was when she talked and laughed and acted as if there was nothing wrong with her. Her words might betray her, her mind wandering across sixty years of memories, but even so she was the old Demelza. His Demelza. Not a creature trapped by a faltering mind and ravaged with uncontrollable emotions. The good days – the good _hours_ – only served as a stark contrast to the bad days.

His foot healed slowly. Dwight came to see him, three days after he broke it, and warned him that if he did not obey instructions, and rest, he ran the risk of losing the use of the foot completely. Ross would have dismissed it as hyperbole, but Dwight was serious, and Ross had never known him to exaggerate when it came to medicine. So he accepted Dwight’s orders, though even after a few days of bed rest, he was bored and irritable and impatient with his aging body. It was frustrating, and beyond that it was even upsetting, for often he heard Demelza’s voice raised in a cry of unhappiness or fear or irritation, and he could not go to her. It was why he had hired Miss Fletcher, of course, but Ross was so very aware of how little time he might have left with Demelza. Perhaps not with her body, perhaps that would last for years yet, but there was so little time left with her mind, her heart.

Yes, it was frustrating and upsetting in the extreme, to hear Demelza in distress and to be unable to go to her. The horrible incident, when she had relived hearing the news of Jeremy’s death, would not have been easily forgotten even if it had not been repeated. But it was repeated. A few days later that howl of despair echoed through Nampara again, the loss hitting her again just as fresh as before, and nothing could calm her. Once again she was persuaded to drink a sedative, and ceased crying when slumber overtook her, but the wailing echoed in Ross’s ears long after she fell asleep.

It was unspeakably cruel, Ross felt, that Demelza’s mind should linger on these painful memories when he knew that she had experienced so much happiness as well. Jeremy’s death, Julia’s death. It was small comfort that at least she seemed not to dwell on other unhappy incidents – particularly those that had been wholly or partially Ross’s fault.

And yet even he, lost in grief and helpless frustration as he was, could see that Demelza was not unhappy always. She was not entirely lost in hurtful memories, unable to recall anything happier. It might feel so sometimes, but the truth was that she still laughed, still smiled, still hummed and sang. She still knitted her blanket squares, and still liked to wander in the garden or in the nearby fields in search of flowers or greenery for the house. She still greeted Ross every morning with a soft smile and a gentle kiss and a murmuring of his name. Most days she had forgotten that Ross had broken his ankle, but every day she was full of concern and offered to stay upstairs with him to keep him company. So every day Miss Fletcher brought Demelza’s work basket upstairs, and made sure she was warm enough and comfortable, and then retreated to a seat just beside the door. Demelza chattered away and knitted, and Ross listened and hoarded every smile, every expression of happiness, like a miser hoarding gold.

Clowance, who arrived within a fortnight of Ross’s accident and who seemed determined to stay until Christmas at least, expressed similar sentiments to Ross, one afternoon when they were alone together in the bedroom.

“It’s strange to see her so happy when we are all so sad,” she remarked. “Every time she forgets the boys’ names, or Henry’s, or even mine…every time, I want to cry. But then she smiles, or sings, or – d’you know, this morning I heard her telling Betsy Maria to make sure and bake extra bread and take some home with her.”

“Why did she do that?” Ross asked, trying to settle himself into a more comfortable position. He would swear to it that he ached more from inactivity than he had before he’d been ordered to bed rest. The original two weeks had passed, but Hancock wasn’t pleased with his progress, and insisted that Ross needed more time off his foot or risk the fracture becoming worse. Ross had protested, of course, but couldn’t deny that it was still too painful to put any weight through the foot, even when using crutches rather than his usual stick.

“Because – so she said – Grambler closing meant hungry mouths needed feeding,” said Clowance. Ross grimaced and shook his head; no doubt Demelza had mistaken Betsy Maria for Jinny Carter, though Jinny had been far younger than Betsy Maria, when she’d worked here. “But that’s not the point, Papa,” Clowance continued. “The point is, it’s so like her, isn’t it? She’s still my mother, even though sometimes…sometimes she looks at me and…” She trailed off. She had been so dismayed to discover that her face was one of those that was fading out of Demelza’s memory – not gone entirely yet, but so unreliable that nobody could tell, from one day to the next, whether Demelza would recognise her daughter or not.

She was downstairs with her grandsons, now. She couldn’t remember their names from one moment to the next, but the two young children didn’t seem to mind; they climbed into her lap demanding cuddles and stories just the same as if she could always look at them and know one was Charles and the other William.

Ross reached out and patted Clowance’s hand. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

“I feel I ought not to be happy when she’s happy,” Clowance said slowly, frowning at the thought. “Because it won’t last. But she’s still Mama. Her happiness has always been…well, sort of contagious, hasn’t it?”

Ross was startled into a laugh, and he wondered, when Clowance smiled warmly at him, if that had been her intention – to make him smile, to revive some levity in him. She had seen Dwight and Caroline several times since coming home, and he was fairly sure she had written regularly to them both, over the past months, to demand more detail than Ross was generally willing to commit to paper. No doubt they had both told her that he was in need of some cheerful company or distraction, something to take his mind off the heavy burden of Demelza’s health. Had Clowance come to Ross with any overt intention of cheering him up, he would have rebuffed her quickly. But she was too clever to commit such an error, and her approach was too subtle for him to guard against.

Certainly merely having Clowance in Nampara, and her two young boys, was proving a helpful distraction while he was confined to bed. And there was a general sense of reassurance, too, at another pair of eyes watching Demelza, another set of hands to help her. Clowance and Miss Fletcher between them seemed amply able to keep Demelza from ever being alone, and sometimes when Demelza sank into a burst of misery, Clowance was able to soothe her almost as well as Ross could. When Demelza could remember Clowance’s face, they had happy hours together, either the two of them downstairs in the main house or here, in the bedroom, so that Ross could be included. And the twins, too, were old enough to be delightfully engaging, while being young enough that the inconsistencies in their grandmother’s behaviour seemed to be taken as a matter of course.

They particularly liked Demelza to tell them stories of their mama, and their auntie Bella and Uncle Henry, and of Grandpapa Ross’s adventures as a younger man. Ross worried that Demelza might grow more confused, by dwelling on things from so long ago, but Miss Fletcher confided to Ross that she thought Demelza was in fact more settled, talking about the things that she could remember clearly instead of being constantly faced with the things that she had forgotten. And indeed, as November crawled by, Demelza did seem less prone to tears or upsets. She seemed wearier, and spent more and more time in her rocking chair in the parlour or sitting beside the bed in an armchair brought purposely for her comfort. The howling grief of Jeremy’s death still hit her from time to time, and the strong winter winds often set her to crying for Julia, but sometimes several days at a time would go by without tears, without grief or frustration or fear holding sway.

Ross was finally allowed respite from confinement in the final days of November, though Hancock warned him to be careful and Dwight sent him a strongly-worded letter on the necessity of heeding medical advice. It was galling to discover how his strength had waned during the four or five weeks he had spent in bed, but at least he still had the use of his foot, and in fact the rest had eased some of the habitual ache he was used to feeling.

“You said it was like that after France, too,” Demelza observed, pouring Ross’s tea for him and adding sugar before anybody could stop her. Ross didn’t draw attention to it. Too pleased to be back downstairs, he drank the sweet tea without complaint. “When you’d been a…a…what d’you call it, a captive.”

“Prisoner of war,” Ross supplied.

“Yes, that,” she nodded. “Before you went gallivanting about playing soldier.” She smiled at him, all playful humour, and Ross summoned a smile in return. He didn’t like this conversation, wary of it straying too close to dangerous subjects. He shared a brief glance with Clowance, who had seen several of Demelza’s fits of grief now and who, like Ross, was eager to avoid letting Demelza wander too close to the memory of Jeremy’s death. But Demelza returned to safer waters without anyone needing to guide the conversation. “You never did like to be idle,” she said, “but you did ought to know it does your ankle good sometimes. And don’t forget to use them crutches, Ross.” She picked up the pot again, to pour more tea, but all the cups were full, and she frowned down at the table, brows drawn together, lips pursed in confusion or irritation. “Oh,” she said. “Did I not drink it?”

“No, Mama,” said Clowance gently. “It’s still hot. See?” She lifted her own cup and blew lightly across the surface. Demelza watched her, still frowning, and then she let Ross take the teapot and set it safely back on the table.

“So t’is,” she murmured. “I…what was I saying, Ross?”

“You were telling me to take more care of myself,” he reminded her. “Which I recall has been a favourite lecture of mine, in the past.” Her confusion melted away, replaced by a roll of her eyes and an indulgent smile. Ross hurried along before she could retort with a tart remark about his historic tendency to recklessness. “By the way, my dear, we must answer Bella’s last letter. About Christmas? She’s insisting that she wants to come, but I think it would be too much to have her stay here, with Christopher and the baby.”

“Where else would she stay?”

“Geoffrey Charles has offered to have them at Trenwith.” He watched her carefully for any sign of distress, but she seemed only thoughtful. “Or they could stay here, and Clowance might go to Trenwith for a few days, with the boys.”

“But Clowance might want to be with Stephen,” Demelza protested. Ross looked swiftly at Clowance, whose lips were pressed tightly together, as if she had to stop herself from saying something. “T’is their first together, after all, and we shouldn’t insist she comes home for it. I mean,” she corrected herself, with a rueful expression “not home, anymore. Oh, Ross, I never shall get used to my children leaving.” She tried to pour herself more tea, and this time Clowance took the teapot from her. Her eyes were bright, and the skin around her lips was white, but she said nothing when Demelza gave her a blank, confused stare. “Thank you,” she said to Clowance. “Very kind. Do I – do I know you? Ross didn’t tell me we were expecting visitors.”

“It’s me, Mama,” Clowance choked out. “It’s Clowance.”

Demelza smiled, but there was something about it that wasn’t quite right. It was her company smile, Ross decided, the smile that was genuine but without depth, without the warm twinkle in her eyes that signified true happiness or mirth or kinship. She smiled at Clowance as if her daughter was a stranger, like an unknown guest at a ball or a dinner party.

“How funny,” she said. “My daughter’s called Clowance. I never knew anyone else with that name.” She turned back to Ross, oblivious to the hurt she had caused. “Ross, d’you know who I’d like to invite for Christmas? Francis and Elizabeth. We’ve never had them here, though we’ve been there twice. It’d be nice, wouldn’t it? To have them here. And perhaps we could persuade Aunt Agatha.”

“Perhaps we could,” Ross agreed, feeling worn out and hollow and desperately sad. “We’ll see.”

In the end, Ross ruled that Bella must stay at Trenwith, because with Clowance and the two grandsons, and Edward to join them for Christmas, there would already be enough visitors in Nampara for Demelza to cope with. She tired so easily these days, and he was ever-cautious that she should not be confronted with too many faces for whom she must struggle for recognition.   

“It isn’t fair on her,” he said to Geoffrey Charles and Clowance, when they gathered with him in the library to discuss how to handle the festivities. “She gets so frightened. Even with the servants she’s known for years…”

“Of course Bella must stay with us,” Geoffrey Charles agreed. “And look, Ross – Amadora has offered for us to host a gathering, this year. Clowance, you and Edward could come Christmas Eve and stay ‘til a day or so later, and Bella and Christopher – we’ll be a merry bunch of cousins, and you and Demelza can come for dinner, Ross, or the afternoon, or for whatever you think best.” Ross clasped his cousin’s shoulder in gratitude that he could not express in words, and so it was settled. Trenwith would host the Poldarks this Christmas, as well as any Carnes who would come, and Ross would be able to protect Demelza a little from some of the things that might confuse or upset or weary her.

On the day itself, Henry drove Ross and Demelza over to Trenwith in the wagon. The distance was too far for Ross to walk, these days, even before he had broken his ankle. He would happily have ridden, still perfectly able to sit in a saddle and manage a horse, but he and Henry mutually agreed that it was perhaps not best to try Demelza on a horse. It had been months since she had ridden, and it would give her too many opportunities to wander off. Henry was perfectly happy to saddle the farm horses to the wagon and drive them, and it meant Demelza could be wrapped up well enough against the cold. She seemed to feel it more and more, these days.

It was a merry dinner at Trenwith, despite everything. Ross, seated beside Demelza, was very aware that she clutched his hand tightly under the table throughout the meal, but felt she managed well enough. She rarely addressed a remark to anyone without glancing at him first, as if to check with him whether she knew the person speaking to her, but every time he smiled and nodded and, if she needed it, leaned in close to murmur a name into her ear. Everyone here was related to her by blood or marriage, cousins and children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, but of all of them, only Geoffrey Charles was still reliably recognised by Demelza.

How far she had come since last Christmas, Ross thought bitterly as Esther Carter, her niece, tried to coax Demelza into eating a little more of something. Some more goose, Esther suggested, or syllabub, or could she fetch Demelza a jelly from the kitchen? Demelza ate little and could not remember who Esther was, even with Ross’s prompting. Last Christmas she had known almost everyone here, though she had sometimes grown a little muddled. Now she protested to Ross, in an undertone, that she had no nieces that she knew of, all her brothers were too young to be wed.

"’Tis unfair of ‘em to invite so many I don’t know,” she fretted. “I feel they’re all staring and waiting for me to make a mistake.”

“What mistake could you possibly make?” he murmured, stroking his thumb against the back of her hand. “What do you mean, my dear?” But Demelza shook her head, and it was likely, Ross knew, that she had no clear answer to give. Perhaps it had been a mistake to bring her to Trenwith, where she had so few happy memories. He poured himself a little more wine and offered Esther an approving nod when Esther applied to her aunt, again, to try this or that tasty dish.

After dinner, Ross and Demelza took their leave at once. Demelza was too tired to stay for what was likely to be a boisterous afternoon, and Ross was looking forward to a quiet interlude too. Geoffrey Charles insisted on driving them home, claiming the walk back would do him good. Ross had no objection, and Demelza just shrugged and offered a weary smile. But halfway home, she pushed aside some of the blankets and shawls wrapped around her and spoke out.

“Geoffrey Charles,” she called out. “Will you stop a minute? I have something I ought to say, now, before I forget again.” Geoffrey Charles brought the wagon to a halt, and Demelza looked at him with a clarity that had been missing from her for most of the day. “I want you to know,” she said, “that Francis would be proud of you.” Ross coughed to cover his surprise, and colour rose in Geoffrey Charles’s face. Demelza continued as if neither man had reacted at all. “I sometimes do think we don’t speak of these things enough. And so much of the time I get so muddled in my head. But I wanted to tell you, because it’s true.”

“Aunt Demelza,” Geoffrey Charles murmured.

“He was one of the best men I ever knew,” she told him. “You do him proud. And I wanted to say so now, afore I forget.” She smiled, but sadly, almost wistfully. “He was a good man. Ten years he’s been gone, but I still miss him.” The moment of clarity had passed, and Ross reached forward and tucked her wraps closer about her. A lump in his throat kept him from speaking. “We’d better hurry, there’s rain coming,” Demelza prophesied then. “Leave me be, Ross, I’m plenty warm.” Geoffrey Charles looked at her for a little longer, his cheeks flushed from embarrassment or pleasure or both. Then he turned back to the horses and flicked the reins.

When they reached Nampara, it was a weary Demelza who alighted the wagon, and she agreed without protest to Miss Fletcher’s suggestion that she should rest in bed for a while. Ross, full of a strange foreboding that he would not have been able to explain to anyone, wandered around the downstairs rooms of Nampara until his foot began to ache too badly and Betsy Maria Martin began to look irritated by his restlessness. Then he went upstairs, expecting to find Demelza asleep but hoping that perhaps she was awake. Miss Fletcher was sewing beside the bedroom fire, but a glance from Ross made her take her leave. She was, Ross had to admit, as courteous and tactful a person as he might wish, and there was no denying how much her presence in Nampara had helped ease the load on everyone else. He still wished it was not necessary, but he could recognise their good fortune in finding someone who suited so well.

Demelza looked very small in the bed. Her skin was almost as white as her nightgown, her white hair the same shade as the pillow beneath. Her hand rested on top of the blanket, and her wedding ring glinted in the wintry sunlight that came through the windows. Ross trod carefully, but with the crutches he was far from quiet, and Demelza opened her eyes before had had crossed halfway from the door to the bed.

“Ross,” she murmured.

“I’m here, my love.” He sat on the edge of the bed and then, at her gesture, he leaned down to remove his boots so he could join her. He lay atop the covers, she beneath, facing each other, just as they had eighteen months before, after Dwight had delivered his verdict. It felt like a lifetime ago. Demelza was thinner than she had been then, more tired…more frail. Or perhaps that was merely Ross’s perception of her, after all that had happened. Today at dinner she had looked around and known so few of her family. Her nearest and dearest, those she still sometimes knew, but in her mind her children were often infants still. She drifted from past to present and back to past, and nothing ever anchored her to the present. Nothing was _real_ to her anymore.

Nothing except himself, and Ross thanked God every day for that.

“Ross,” Demelza said again, and she sighed. Ross put his arm around her waist. She would be sixty-five in a few months, and he was seventy-five already, or almost. He had known her for fifty-two years, and loved her for nearly all of that time. He could barely remember his life without her. She closed her eyes, and Ross lifted his hand to touch her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids. She smiled beneath his touch. There were dark marks beneath her eyes, though he knew she slept well. It was a fatigue from daytime exertions rather than from any lack of rest at night. He traced the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. He still found her so captivating.

“Shall I leave you to sleep?” he asked at last, in a whisper. Demelza shook her head, opened her eyes and smiled at him.

“I like you being here,” she confided. “Sometimes other people get to be too…too…” She paused, puzzling over the word she wanted, and then she shrugged one shoulder and let it go. “Not you,” she said. “Never you.”

“I’m glad.”

“I upset the children, don’t I?” she asked him. Her smile had faded, but she seemed calm, so Ross didn’t try to deny the truth of it.

“Yes,” he said. “Sometimes. But they know it isn’t your fault.”

“I don’t _mean_ to,” she sighed. “Sometimes I look at them and I know they’re mine. I _know_ ‘em. They’re in my heart.” She lifted a hand and pressed it over her breast, and Ross covered it with his own. “Sometimes even if I can’t remember their names, I still know they’re mine. Like they’re part of me and I just don’t know which part. D’you see?” Ross nodded, but more to keep her talking than because he truly understood what she meant. He could not imagine not knowing their children’s names, or confusing one with another; he could not understand it. But he knew what she meant when she talked of the children being part of her, deep in her heart. Julia, Jeremy, Clowance, Bella, Henry…they were all in Ross’s heart too, they were made from he and Demelza, and he could understand that sense of belonging that she was trying to express. “And sometimes they’re strangers,” Demelza went on. “Sometimes they’re just…I just look at them and I don’t know them. And today, at dinner, that woman that wanted me to eat – I should know her, shouldn’t I?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ross said, not for the first time and undoubtedly not for the last. “It doesn’t matter, my love.”

“It do to other people, Ross.” She turned her hand and entwined her fingers with his. “They get upset at me, and it makes me feel so…I get panicky…”

She trailed off and closed her eyes again. She was silent for a while, and Ross began to think she had fallen asleep. He wouldn’t be surprised, for it had been an unusually busy day for her. He almost began to drift off himself, lulled by the quiet and the gentle crackle of the fire in the hearth. Henry would be back for supper, but Clowance was staying at Trenwith. It was a shame they could not all be together for the whole of Christmas, but it was best for Demelza. Everything, these days, was done and decided with reference to what was best for Demelza. Nobody minded that – or at least, they all understood.

“Ross,” she spoke suddenly. Ross startled back into full wakefulness. “Ross,” Demelza said again, “you do know, don’t you?” She clutched his hand tighter and looked at him with big eyes. There was a slightly frantic edge to her, an air of agitation that made Ross alarmed. It usually heralded some upset.

“Do I know what?” he asked. “What is it, my dear?”

“You know I love you, don’t you?”

“Oh, Demelza.” He pulled her close to him, wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. She clung to him, pressing her face against his neck and pressing as close to him as she could. The blankets were a barrier between them. She smelled of the soap she used, something floral and fragrant that always reminded him of her. His Demelza, his love, his dearest wife. “Yes, I know,” he managed. “I know. And I love you.”

“I’ll always love you,” she whispered. “Always. I’ve loved you so long and so deep…I could never not love you, Ross.”

“Yes,” he murmured. His throat was choked. There were no tears stinging at his eyes. The sorrow was too great for tears. But perhaps she was right. Perhaps she would always love him, always know him. She described their children as part of her heart; perhaps he was engraved too deeply in her heart and mind to be forgotten. If she was to cling to anything, it was right that it should be to him, and to her love for him – as he had often clung to her, as an anchor in a storm. She had grounded him for so many years. If he could ground her now, it would be his privilege. “And I, too,” he said. “I could never not love you.” Always he would love her. Loving her was too deep a part of him to be cut out now.

She yawned, and tried to burrow closer to him. “I’m that sleepy,” she murmured. “D’you think Jeremy’ll be home for supper?” The conversation, her fierce need to make sure he knew she loved him, seemed to be drifting away from her. Ross stroked her hair and pressed a kiss to her temple.

“I don’t know,” he lied. “But have a rest now, my dear. I’ll wake you when it’s time for supper.”

 


End file.
